LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

SheLft. 




UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Keys of the Kingdom; 



OR, 



THE UNFAILING PROMISE. 



REV. JAMES J. MORIARTY, LL.D., 

Pastor of St. John the Evangelist 's Church, Syracuse, iV. Y., and Author 

of ** Stumbling-Blocks made Stepping-Stones on the Road to the 

Catholic Faith,' 1 ' 1 " All for Love; or, From the Manger to 

the Cross," " Wayside Pencillings," etc. etc. 



" I say to thee : That thou art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build my Church, 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the Keys 
of the Kingdom of Heaven."— St. Matthew, xvi. 18, 19. 




NEW YORK : 

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO. 

g Barclay Street. 
LONDON : . BURNS & OATES. 



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„> y\1' 



I 



imprimatur 



JOHN CARD. McCLOSKEY, 

Archbishop of New York. 



New York, August 4, 1885. 



Copyright, 
Rev. James J. Mori arty, LL.D., 



TO 

Saint peter, 

THE CHIEF OF THE APOSTOLIC BAND, 

THE CONFIRMER OF HIS BRETHREN, 

THE CENTRE OF UNITY, 

Gbe IRock upon wbicb Cbriat built 1bts Cburcb, 

TO WHOM WERE CONFIDED 

Zbe 1Re^6 ot tbe UrtngDom of t)ea\?en t 

AND 

THE CARE OF SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP, 
THIS LITTLE WORK IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED 
WITH THE HOPE AND PRAYER 
THAT THROUGH HIS INTERCESSION MANY SOULS NOW WAN- 
DERING IN THE MAZES OF ERROR MAY BE BROUGHT 

INTO 

Gbe ©ne ffolfc under tbe ©ne Sbepber&* 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction, -7 

Is Religion Worthy of Man's Study? ... 21 

What Rule of Faith was laid down by Christ? . 73 

The Church One, 142 

The Church Holy, ....... 233 

The Church Catholic, 292 

The Church Apostolic, 327 



INTRODUCTION. 




DISTINGUISHED English au- 
thor lately published a most in- 
teresting work, under the title 
Is life Worth Living? which has been 
widely read, dealing, as it does, with a 
question that every thoughtful man has 
asked himself, especially in moments of 
sadness or deep meditation. This stir- 
ring question is so closely connected with 
another of no less import that if we an- 
swer one adequately we cover the ground 
occupied by the other : Is Religion worth 
Studying ? 

If life be really worth living, it is only 
because of religion, the key it affords to 



8 Iiitrodttction. 

the mysteries of life, the motives of ac- 
tion which it furnishes, the innumerable 
aids it supplies, the consolations it gives, 
and the grand, well-founded hopes it holds 
out of a brighter, undying life in the fu- 
ture. 

If we be not mistaken as to the drift 
of Mr. Mallock's work, we believe that 
this is the conclusion to which he wishes 
to draw his readers ; but he merely points 
it out and leaves to others the task of 
farther development. 

Though not gifted with his magic pen 
nor able to charm by any of his many 
graces *of style, we purpose examining, in 
our own humble way, this most important 
of living questions, hoping and praying 
that our simple line of argument, couched 
in plain, heartfelt words, may, in some 
measure, help to make life worth living 



Introduction. 9 

to some earnest, anxious souls struggling 
forward towards the light that beams from 
the everlasting shore. 

We shall first strive to answer the lead- 
ing question, " Is Religion worth Study- 
ing ? " If so, which religion ? By whom 
was the true religion founded ; what rule 
of faith was laid down ; what marks, notes, 
or characteristics distinguish the one true 
Church from all others, so that it can be 
easily discerned by any man of earnest, 
inquiring mind and of prayerful habit ? 

These shining marks of the one true 
faith are like wonderful gems, which are 
so resplendent in themselves that they 
need not the enchasing of human elo- 
quence nor the adornment which rhetoric 
might be able to furnish. In this case 
truly is " beauty unadorned adorned the 
most." For, as the late Cardinal Wise- 



io Introduction. 

man remarked, " truth is a gem which 
need not be enchased, which, faultless and 
cloudless, may be held up to the pure 
bright light, on any side, in any direction, 
and will everywhere display the same pu- 
rity and soundness and beauty." 

Christ has adorned His Spouse — His 
Church — with four most brilliant gems 
"of purest ray serene," that no 

" Dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear," 

but which have been exposed to a criti- 
cal world for nineteen centuries, placed in 
most trying lights, subjected to the most 
crucial tests, and yet no mists of error 
nor darkness of heresy or infidelity have 
been able to cast the slightest cloud on 
their dazzling brightness. These gems, 
that shine forth so grandly from the bo- 
som of Christ's spotless One as to be 



Introduction. 1 1 

seen by all men whose sight is purified 
by studious inquiry and enlightening grace, 
are Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apos- 
tolicity. 

In treating of these characteristics of 
the Catholic faith we shall necessarily 
have to refer to opposing systems of re- 
ligion and to their manifest lack of these 
shining qualities by which Christ wished 
His Church to be for ever distinguished. 
Truth is not always agreeable, yet, for the 
sake of immortal souls that are perishing 
for want of the light and are living in 
" the darkness of the shadow of death," it 
should be told plainly yet kindly. Hence, 
in whatever we have written in this book, 
it is certainly not our intention to offend; 
and when we have had something to say 
that might appear harsh to those not of 
the household of • faith, we have endea- 



1 2 Introdtiction. 

vored to select the opinions of non-Catho- 
lic writers, and let those speak who can- 
not be accused of any partiality towards 
our Holy Mother the Church. 

It is surely the prompting of Christian 
charity on the part of him who firmly 
and unhesitatingly believes that he is in 
possession of the only true, saving faith, 
and who has a deep, abiding love for his 
fellow-men, more especially for his fellow- 
citizens of a great and free republic, to 
endeavor to lead them to the attainment 
of the same light and knowledge and to 
the participation of the same incomparable 
happiness. 

It would be false liberality and still 
more false charity for such a one to al- 
low himself to be dragged down from the 
sublime height of divine truth on which 
he stands to the level of the men, in the 



Introduction. 1 3 

present age, who are without any Chris- 
tian faith. It is his duty to bring them 
up to his plane of religious thought, and 
not to descend to their low grade in 
order to obtain their applause or to be 
considered in harmony with the " spirit of 
the age." Nor should he dignify with the 
misnomer of " Natural Religion " (as does 
the author of Ecce Homo) the thinly-veiled 
paganism of the worshippers of "culture" 
in this nineteenth century. Professor See- 
lye, in this his latest work, makes the fol- 
lowing declaration : " Especially of late years 
and among ourselves art and science have 
proclaimed themselves to be not mere 
rebels against the reigning religion, but 
rival religions. ,, This assuredly points to a 
new religion of culture that is, according 
to its votaries, to take the place of Chris- 
tianity. It is sad' to see such an able 



1 4 Introduction. 

man as the author of Ecce Homo, and 
the president of a well-known American 
college, infected with the views of this 
neo-paganism. He boldly declares that 
" it is a mistake to imagine Christianity 
as standing or falling with the miracle of 
the Resurrection." " If we look, as Pro- 
testants are disposed to do, at the origi- 
nal institution of Christianity, we find it 
growing out of the single alleged fact of 
the Resurrection ; we find St. Paul himself 
declaring that without that fact it is 
nothing — the fact being precisely one of 
those which the modern scientific school 
puts on one side. On the other hand, 
the Catholic view is still more pitilessly 
dogmatic." * Very true, professor, and 
more than likely to remain so — the same 
to-day, yesterday, and to-morrow, teach- 

* Natural Religion, p. 216. 



Introduction. 1 5 

ing the unchangeable truths of God's reve- 
lation. 

We are not, therefore, surprised to learn 
from the recapitulation of his own work 
that he "has not aimed at combating the 
scepticism of the age. It has rather as- 
sumed that a system of doctrine which 
has been left unrevised for more than a 
thousand years must needs provoke scep- 
ticism." * He evidently thinks that there 
is too much of the supernatural in the 
Christian creed : " Supernatural religion, all 
must feel, has not done so much, has not 
reformed the world so much, as might 
have been expected. Its failure is evi- 
dently due in great part to its supernatu- 
ralism, to the unnatural stress it lays upon 
a future life." 

Supernatural religion does not attempt 

* Ibid. p. 234. 



1 6 Introduction. 

to coerce the free-will of man. Every 
individual is perfectly at liberty to follow 
its promptings or to throw obstacles in 
the way of its progress, and this is the 
only reason why the true Christian reli- 
gion, or " supernatural religion," has not 
entirely reformed the world. 

So this strange scientific school entirely 
rejects all faith in the supernatural ; and 
blind indeed must they be who do not 
clearly see that whatever of pure civiliza- 
tion this age possesses has all sprung from 
belief in the supernatural and the fair fruits 
it has produced over the face of the earth 
during its reign over the minds and hearts 
of men. 

Mr. Mallock, who, whilst professing no 
religion, yet candidly admits that if we cast 
aside the supernatural we would necessarily 
take away the chief merit even from the 



Introduction. 1 7 

greatest masterpieces of art and literature, 
before which these scientists bow in admira- 
tion, if not in worship, thus speaks : " Let 
us turn to the world's greatest works of 
art — I mean its dramas ; for just as poetry 
is the most articulate of all the arts, so is 
the drama the most comprehensive form of 
poetry." Referring to the "Antigone" of 
Sophocles, the " Macbeth " and " Hamlet " of 
Shakspere, and the " Faust " of Goethe, he 
says : " What is the chief faculty in us that 
they appeal to ? It will need but little 
thought to show us that they appeal pri- 
marily to the supernatural moral judgment ; 
that this judgment is perpetually being ex- 
pressed explicitly in the works themselves, 
and, which is far more important, that it 
is always presupposed in us. In other 
words, these supreme manifestations of life 
are presentations of "men struggling or fail- 



1 8 Introduction. 

ing to struggle, not after natural happiness, 
but after supernatural right ; and it is al- 
ways presupposed on our part that we ad- 
mit this struggle to be the one important 
thing. ... It will be thus seen, and the 
more we consider the matter the more 
plain will it become to us, that in all such 
art as that which we have been now con- 
sidering the premises on which all its 
power and greatness rests is this : The 
grand relation of man is not first to his 
brother-men, but to something else that 
is beyond humanity, that is at once with- 
out and beyond himself; to this first, and 
to his brother-men through this. We are 
not our own ; we are bought with a price. 
Our bodies are God's temples, and the 
joy and terror of life depend on our keep- 
ing these temples pure or defiling them. 
Such are the solemn and profound beliefs. 



Introduction. i g 

whether conscious or unconscious, on which 
all the higher art of the world has based 
itself."* 

Eliminate the element of supernaturalism 
from religion and you take away its very 
essence, you sap the foundations of mo- 
rality, resolve order into chaos, take away 
from human life its true value as well as 
its true meaning, and plunge us into worse 
than Egyptian darkness, shutting us out 
for ever from the rays of that most bene- 
ficent " Light that enlighteneth every man 
that cometh into the world/' 

But, thanks to the All-wise and All-pow- 
erful " Giver of every good and perfect 
gift," there is no danger that that Light 
shall ever be withdrawn from us, for it 
will always shine forth from the Citadel of 
the Lord, the House of the Living God, 

* Is life Worth living? pp. 147-150. 



20 Introduction. 

" the pillar and ground of truth," against 
which not all the assaults of error, heresy, 
or infidelity, nor even those of hell itself, 
can ever prevail : " No weapon that is 
formed against thee shall prosper ; and 
every tongue that resisteth thee in judg- 
ment thou shalt condemn."* " For the 
nation and the kingdom that will not serve 
thee shall perish. . . . And the children 
of them that afflict thee shall come bow- 
ing down to thee, and all that slander 
thee shall worship the steps of thy feet, 
and shall call thee the City of the Lord, 
the Sion of the Holy One of Israel." f 

Church of St. John the Evangelist, Syracuse, N. Y., 
Feast of St. James the Apostle, July 25, 1885. 

* Isaias liv. 17. f Ibid. lx. 12-14. 



The Keys of the Kingdom. 



1te IRelioion voovtfoy of fIDan's £tub$? 




[T is a clear sign of the strange 
spirit of the age when such a 
question is asked atid submit- 
ted for examination. There is no reason 
why it should not be met and properly- 
answered. For indifference is the crying 
evil of the times, and is but the natural 
consequence of the so-called liberality of 
the age in which we live. We are not 
of those, let it be borne in mind, who cry 
down the nineteenth century, and who be- 
lieve it to be the very personification of 



22 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

evil, the very reign of Antichrist. There 
is much to admire in this age, and very 
much indeed for which we all owe our 
most heartfelt thanks to Almighty God, 
the Giver of every good and perfect gift. 
There is far more liberty than in former 
times, although here and there, especially 
in some European countries, there is the 
excess of liberty, or license. There has 
been much undoubted progress made in 
all human sciences, astounding discoveries, 
marvellous inventions, and vast improve- 
ments as to the material welfare of the 
individual considered in his comforts and 
the conveniences of life. 

There is certainly no lack of liberality — 
and with that, when it is genuine, we have 
no wish to find fault — but we believe that 
even liberality can reach an extreme. Far 
be it from us to sigh over the ages that 



Is Religion worthy of Man's Study ? 23 

are past, or to wish to recall the era of 
religious persecution — the most hateful of 
all kinds of persecution ; vet there was one 
treasure possessed by the people of the 
middle ages that all sincere, religiously- 
disposed persons might well desire to en- 
joy, even in this progressive age, and that 
is religious unity. Whatever may be the 
faults ascribed to those who lived in those 
old times, . it must certainly be admitted 
that they had strong Christian faith and 
the magnificent enthusiasm which is born 
of it, that was willing to make any sacri- 
fice for religion. They bequeathed to the 
generations that were to follow them im- 
perishable marks of their devotion in those 
grand and imposing temples erected to 
God's honor, which are a source of admir- 
ing wonder to this cold, materialistic age. 
There is a spirit of false liberality afloat 



24 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

that infects the entire religious atmosphere. 
The so-called liberalist seems to have but 
one doctrine — namely, that he respects all 
religions and forms of religion, and that 
they are all equally good ; but if you will 
really sound him to the very bottom you 
will find that he means that sensible men 
such as he, those fully abreast with the 
dominant spirit of the times, should not 
trouble themselves with religion in any 
shape or form, as it is something unwor- 
thy of serious study and attention. He 
may possibly admit, by a wonderful conde- 
scension, that it is an excellent thing for 
women and children, but decidedly beneath 
the consideration of men of nineteenth-cen- 
tury culture. 

As there are not a few naturally good 
men and honorable citizens — especially in 
this great country of ours — who are un- 



Is Religion worthy of Mart s Study ? 25 

fortunately imbued with these sentiments 
and infected with the virulent poison of 
indifference, we deem it well to consider 
this question, " Is religion worthy of man's 
study ? " and to answer it by showing that 
there is no study in the world that can 
possibly be compared with it in impor- 
tance, in true grandeur, in urgent neces- 
sity and unspeakable advantages. 

The importance of a study is judged by 
the value of the end in view. The ob- 
jects of the different human sciences — as- 
tronomy, geology, chemistry, mathematics, 
etc. — are limited, confined to the present 
life, its passing interests, pleasures, or con- 
veniences. None of them, not even phi- 
losophy, can answer satisfactorily the most 
important questions that suggest themselves 
to every human mind. Philosophy, sepa- 
rated from religion, rejects all creeds and 



26 Tlic Keys of the Kingdom. 

gives us nothing but opinions, more or less 
vague, on the most necessary objects of 
man's inquiry. No one has ever given us 
a better description of the wrangles of phi- 
losophers, and no one, perhaps, was more 
capable of judging them, than one of 
their own greatest leaders in modern times 
— Jean Jacques Rousseau. He thus de- 
scribes his philosophic brethren : 

" I have consulted our philosophers, I 
have perused their books, I have examined 
their several opinions ; I have found them 
all proud, positive, and dogmatizing, even 
in their pretended scepticism, know 

ything, proving nothing, and ridiculing 
one another ; and this is the only point in 
which they concur and in which they 
r" Daring when they attack, they 
I themselves without vigor. If 
ider their arguments, they have none 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 27 

but for destruction ; if you count their 
number, each one is reduced to himself ; 
they never unite but to dispute ; to listen 
to them was not the way to relieve my- 
self from my doubts. I conceived that the 
insufficiency of the human understanding 
was the first cause of this prodigious di- 
versity of sentiment, and that pride was the 
second. If our philosophers were able to 
discover truth, which of them would inte- 
rest himself about it ? Each of them knows 
that his system is not better established 
than the others, but he supports it because 
it is his own ; there is not one amongst 
them who, coming to distinguish truth 
from falsehood, would not prefer his own 
error to the truth that is discovered by an- 
other. Where is the philosopher who, for 
his own glory, would not willingly deceive 
the whole human race ? Where is he 



28 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

who, in the secret of his heart, proposes 
any other object than his own distinction ? 
Provided he can but raise himself above 
the commonalty, provided he can eclipse 
his competitors, he has reached the sum- 
mit of his ambition. The great thing for 
him is to think differently from other peo- 
ple. Among believers he is an atheist ; 
among atheists he is a believer. Shun, 
shun then those who, under pretence of 
explaining nature, sow in the hearts of 
men the most dispiriting doctrines, whose 
scepticism is far more affirmative and dog- 
matical than the decided tone of their ad- 
versaries. Under pretence of being them- 
selves the only people enlightened, they im- 
periously subject us to their magisterial de- 
cisions, and would fain palm upon us, for 
the true causes of things, the unintelligible 
systems they have erected in their own 



Is Religion worthy of Man's Study ? 29 

heads ; whilst they overturn, destroy, and 
trample under-foot all that mankind re- 
veres, snatch from the afflicted the only 
comfort left them in their misery, from the 
rich and great the only curb that can re- 
strain their passions, tear from the heart 
all remorse for vice, all hope of virtue, and 
still boast of themselves as the benefactors 
of mankind. i Truth/ they say, i is never 
hurtful to man.' I believe that as well as 
they ; and the same, in my opinion, is a 
proof that what they teach is not the truth." 
What a true, vivid picture is here pre- 
sented to us, though written in the last 
century, of the infidel philosophers and sci- 
entists of our day, who cannot agree among 
themselves, yet discard religion and "tram- 
ple under-foot " all that mankind has ever 
held most dear and sacred ! Truly, it takes 
one of themselves to describe accurately 



$o The Keys of the Kingdo7ii. 

their own peculiar features ; and well in- 
deed has the great French philosopher 
done it, in words that give forth no uncer- 
tain sound. 

In these conferences we take it for 
granted that we are addressing men — men 
worthy of the name — who believe they 
have a soul and that that soul is immor- 
tal. Those who believe it not place them- 
selves — there is no necessity for us to do 
it — on a level with the brute creation. 
Such men. having; abdicated their reason 
and stilled its highest aspirations, cannot 
be reasoned with on such momentous ques- 
tions, for there is no basis on which to * 
work, no foundation on which to build. 

"All men are vain," says the inspir 
writer (Wisdom xiii. i ), "in whom there is 

the knowledge of God." How a 
man gifted with reason can behold the 



Is Religion worthy of Man s Study ? 31 

earth with all its fruitfulness, the wonders 
of the mineral, the vegetable, and the ani- 
mal kingdoms, the incomparable beauty of 
the firmament, the majestic order and un- 
disturbed harmony of the stellar universe, 
and possibly call into doubt the existence 
of an All-wise and Almighty Creator, goes 
beyond our comprehension. "The fool 
hath said in his heart, There is no God " 
(Psalm xiii. 1). Fenelon, the amiable and 
holy Archbishop of Cambray, was one 
evening walking with the young prince 
whose preceptor he was, when the follow- 
ing incident — which we give in the words 
of the late Mgr. de Segur — took place : 

"The heavens glittered with a thousand 
stars. The horizon was still gilded by the 
last rays of the setting sun. All nature 
was at rest, beautiful and sublime. The 
child asking what • hour it was, the good 



32 The Keys of the Kingdom. .' 

bishop drew out his watch. ' What a beau- 
tiful watch, monseigneur ! ' said his young 
pupil. * Will you allow me to look at 
it ? ' The archbishop gave it to him, and 
as he was examining it closely Fenelon 
said : 'It is a very singular thing, my 
dear Louis, that that watch made itself/ 
1 Made itself ! ' repeated the child, looking 
at his master with a smile. i Yes, entirely 
alone. A traveller found it in some des- 
ert, and it seems quite certain that it made 
itself/ 'That is impossible!' young Louis 
answered. ' Monseigneur is laughing at 
me/ ' No, my child, I am not laughing 
at you. What is there impossible in what 
I have said ? ' ' But, monseigneur, a watch 
could never make itself ! ' l And why ? ' 
1 Because so much precision is needed 
in the arrangement of the thousand little 
wheels which cause its motion and make 



Is Religion worthy of Mali s Study f 35 

the hands keep time that it reqi 

great intelligence to organize it ; and even 
then very few men really succeed in the 
operation. That such an article could make 
itself is absolutely impossible ; you have 
been deceived, monsei^neur/ 

" Fenelon embraced the child, and. point- 
ing out to him the starlit heavens above 
their heads, he said : ' What will you think, 
then, dear Louis, of those who pretend 
that all the wondrous heavens have not 
only made themselves but preserve them- 
selves in an unbroken order, and that there 
is no God ? ' ' Are there men so foolish 
and so wicked as to say that ? ' asked the 
boy. 4 Yes, dear child, there are those 
who say it, few in number, thank God.' 
' But are there any who believe it ? I 
can scarcely credit that there are, consider- 
ing how entirely they must do violence to 



34 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

their reason, their heart, their instinct, and 
their good sense before they can maintain 
such an opinion. If it be evident that a 
watch cannot make itself, is it not far 
more so of man himself, by whom watches 
are made? There was a first man, for 
all things have their beginning, and this 
inning is universally attested by the 
history of the human race. It is certain, 
then, that some one made the first man. 
This some one is that Being who made 
all beings, who has Himself been made 
by no one, and whom we call God lie 
is infinite, for there is no limit to I lis 
being; He is eternal — that is to say, in- 
finite in duration, without beginning and 
without end ; almighty, just, good, holy, 
perfect, and infinite in all llis perfect ions. 

I [e is everywhere and invisible, and no 

i in fathom I lis marvels. Jt is in 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Sttcdy ? 35 

Him we live and move and have our 
being. He is our first principle and our 
last end/" 

Believing in God, therefore, and that 
He must necessarily be all-wise as well 
as all-powerful, we believe, likewise, that 
He has placed in us, in our inmost being, 
in our very soul, aspirations for immor- 
tality and an intimate consciousness that 
such is our destiny. Being infinitely good, 
He certainly would not create and implant 
in our bosoms hopes, desires, aspirations 
He never intended to satisfy. This has 
been the constant, invariable belief of all 
times and of all peoples,, and this fact fur- 
nishes in itself an infallible motive of cer- 
titude, aided most powerfully by that in- 
timate sense or interior consciousness, the 
inalienable possession of every child of 
Adam, every member of the human race. 



36 TJi c Keys of the Kingdom. 

The words of Plato, the great pagan phi- 
losopher, ought to put to shame the infi- 
dels of our time. Speaking on the im- 
mortality of the soul, he says : 

"O my friends! if the soul is really im- 
mortal what care should be taken of her, 
not only in respect of the portion of time 
which is called life hut eternity ! And 
the danger of neglecting her from this 
point of view does indeed appear to he 
ul. If death had only been the end 

ill, the wicl it had 

rain in dying, for they would I 
1 happily quit not only of their body 
hut of theii- own evil together with tl 
souls Bui now, inasmuch as the soul is 
tly immortal, there is no release or 
salvation from evil except the attainment 
of the I virtue and wisdom. 

the soul, when on her pi to the 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 37 

world below, takes nothing with her but 
nurture and education ; and these are said 
greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the 
departed at the very beginning of his pil- 
grimage in the other world."* 

In his work on laws, addressing himself 
to young men, Plato speaks of " a divine 
justice which neither you nor any other 
unfortunate will ever glory in escaping, and 
which the ordaining powers have specially 
ordained ; take good heed of them, for a 
day will come when they will take heed 
of you. If you say, I am small and will 
creep into the depths of the earth, or I 
am high and will fly up to heaven, you 
are not so small or so high but that you 
shall pay the fitting penalty, either in the 
world below or in some yet more savage 
place still, whither you shall be conveyed." 

* PhczdOy i. 437 (Jowett's translation). 



38 The Keys of tJic KingdouL 

In another part of the same work he s 
44 Of all the things which a man has, next 
to God, his soul is the most divine and 
most truly his own. Now, in every man 
there are two parts — the better and supe- 
rior part which rules, and the worse and 

inferior part which serves; and the ruler 
,\\i\ - to be preferred to the servant." 
Raised above every other earthly crea- 
ture by the gift of reason, made lord of 
the inferior creation, endowed with an im- 
mortal soul, formed in the very image of 
the Triune ( k>d, by the triple faculty of 
will, memory, and understanding, we must 
confess that that must he the most impor- 
tant of all i which alone can an 
the very fust questions of our sou] the 
superior pail of our nature. The 

. which naturally su Ives 

. mind capable of reasonin 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 39 

" Whence do I come ? " " Why am I 
here?" "Whither do I tend?" 

Religion is the only science that can ef- 
fectually answer these all-important ques- 
tions, and therefore is it most worthy of 
every man's study, of his earnest, con- 
stant, persevering attention. It points out 
to us our noble origin — that we came forth 
from God ; that our bodies, so wonderful 
in their organization, were formed, by His 
Almighty power, of the slime of the earth, 
but that our souls are the very breath, so 
to speak, of the Omnipotent — pure spirits 
that can never taste death. "God breath- 
ed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
man became a living soul." 

What a satisfactory knowledge is this, 
and all the more so when it is contrasted 
with that very weak mental pabulum fur- 
nished us by some of the scientists of the 



40 The Keys of the K; 

ent age, thai we arc the descendants 
pes, who, in the course of have 

loped into reasonable, civilized beii 

" 'I I i n. 

! : . 

Religion shows us whence we came, nar- 
rates th< of our fall, demonsti 
the need of redemption, imparts a faith- 
ful knowle th< Savi mtly 

>u1 i« i us < >ur g rand, eternal destiny, 

ami furnish with all t! 

ry for inment It alon< 

the key t<> tin- i of life and 

I he hand of I tivine 
in the direct i< >n < >f the universe, in I he 

and tall < >1 nal i« mi- ami i »i emi \n<l. 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 41 

strange as it may appear to some, though 
chiefly intended to secure our happiness in 
the next life, it is the only power, the only 
influence, that can render us peaceful and 
content in this, that makes us satisfied 
with our state, that effectually helps us to 
bear not only with the inconveniences and 
discomforts, but chiefly with the misfor- 
tunes, attending our sojourn upon earth. 

Even were we to ignore revelation, rea- 
son itself teaches us that man is such a 
superior being that nothing earthly can 
ever fully satisfy his longings and desires. 
Let him possess an abundance, and even 
a superabundance, of this world's goods, 
an indulgence full and complete of sensual 
pleasures, all the honors and all the glory 
that can be acquired in war or peace, the 
loftiest position that man can reach, the 
greatest success in invention, discovery, sci- 



42 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ence, or art, and his soul will still con- 
tinue u d. There will remain a cer- 
tain undefined or undefmable restlessness 
seeking after something he has not as yet, 
a loi me ^w^ far 
more perfect and entrancing, for "the eye is 

not tilled wilh seeing, neither is the ear tilled 

with hearing";* all of whieh goes to prove 
that he w\b created for a grander, nobler, 
holier destiny than can he obtained here 
below in this circumscribed earthly sphere. 
N 1 love can ever fully satiate the 

cravings of the human heart, no know- 
within mas h Or at- 
tainment law satisfy his intellect ; for, be» 
ing created for the contemplation and pos- 

[nfinite Truth itself, all 
would hut serve to show how deep is the 

1 whieh God alone ean till. 
♦Lccics. i. 8. 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study f 43 

Wealth has no inherent power by which 
it can of itself produce any happiness, plea- 
sure, or delight of any kind. It is not 
an end in itself, but only the means to an 
end. It may procure for us the pleasures, 
comforts, conveniences, and luxuries of life. 

Pleasure itself is either sensual or intel- 
lectual. If merely sensual it only satis- 
fies the lower part of our nature, in which 
we bear resemblance to the brute creation. 
Such pleasures, if unrestrained, only debase 
the mind and generate remorse, disgust, 
and innumerable evils of body and soul. 
If the pleasure be of an intellectual kind 
it does not entirely satiate, for the mind is 
constantly craving more and more know- 
ledge, and whatever it has acquired is of 
its very nature limited and imperfect. 

Neither can worldly glory nor worldly 
honors render -man fully content, for am- 



44 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

bition is as insatiable a passion as avarice. 
A most striking example of this was Alex- 
ander the Great, who having subju- 

lom afu-r kingdom to h ; 
ami the pi t< i trem- 

ble at the very mention of his name. 

table b did not re- 

main another world to conquer. Th< 

; another world to COn< 

more important than any earthly conqi 

but he knew not of it, or more probably 

1 nothii at it, for it was nol to 

i by the arms he w >med 

to wield. 1 le was able to overcome the 

htiesl ai but he was not able to 

[uer himself. patient man is 

r than the valiant, and he that rulelh 
pirit than he that taketh cities." * 

:ie of the chief <>!>- 
* Pi 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 45 

jects for which men labor can ever fill 
the void in their souls, for the best of all 
reasons — that the Creator never intended 
that they should Having made us for 
Himself, the contemplation of His eternal 
attributes and the participation of His 
own beatitude, we shall search the uni- 
verse in vain for any object or any desti- 
ny other than the All-perfect Being Him- 
self, who alone can fully answer our anx- 
ious longings and desires. 

If the highest objects of earthly ambi- 
tion do not and cannot completely satisfy 
their possessors, what can be said for the 
vast majority of the human race, who have 
never been, and in all probability never 
will be, in the enjoyment of wealth, hon- 
ors, or distinction? If there were no here- 
after to readjust the inequalities or to rec- 
tify the wrongs so plainly to be seen in 



46 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

the present life, what a miserable world 
this would be for most of the children of 
nun ! Take away religion and the mag- 
nificent hopes it holds out to the well- 
doer and to him who suffers in silence, 
then, most certainly, life would not be 
worth living to the countless millions who 

have to toil and suffer and hear the hi 
burdens that crush them to the earth. 

The All-powerful One, who, out of the 
promptings of an eternal love, brought us 
forth from nothingness, has not cast us 
into this world t<> perish miserably. To 

each one of Ills creatures, formed in I lis 

own divine likeness, 1 i< ; " I have 

1 thee with an everlasting lo\< 
I lis providence watches, guides, and pro- 

11-. Even the very hairs of our I 

are numbered; and, no matter how lowly 

* Krern. xx.\ 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 47 

our condition, how bitter our sufferings, 
how severe our trials, we have the blessed 
assurance that " to them that love God all 
things work together unto good,"* and 
that " which is at present momentary and 
light of our tribulation worketh for us 
above measure exceedingly an eternal 
weight of glory." f For Thou, O God! 
11 lovest all things that are, and hatest 
none of the things which Thou hast made ; 
for Thou didst not appoint or make any- 
thing hating it. And how could anything 
endure, if Thou wouldst not ? or be pre- 
served, if not called by Thee ? But Thou 
sparest all, because they are Thine, O 
Lord ! who lovest souls." J 

Religion teaches us our chief business 
in this world, that we are placed here 
simply on probation, and that an eter- 

* Rom. viii. 28. f 2 Cor. iv. 17. % Wisdom xi. 25-27. 



48 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

nity of happiness or an eternity of 
misery rests upon the issue. * We are all 
endowed with free-will, and, as a neces- 
sary consequence, capable of merit or de- 
merit. No man will he condemned for 

what he did not or COllld not Lnow. Oft 

f<»r actions for which he was not fully 
Me. We are composed of body 
and spirit, and with body and spirit, da 
fore, we should worship our Creator We 
should not only do what He commands 

and avoid what lie forbids, hui all 

that 1 le prop fSeS to Our faith, and this 

entirely on the strength of I lis di . 
racity, who can neither deceive nor be de- 
ceived We must submit our intellect 
well as our wills to God 

No man should decline the yoke of 
mse of its mysteries. We 
bunded by mystei n in the nam- 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 49 

ral order. There are mysteries in and 
around us — mysteries that no philosopher 
or scientist, be they never so learned, can 
fathom or explain. Why, then, expect 
that in the higher order — the spiritual, the 
supernatural — there should not exist still 
more wonderful mysteries? 

One of the most eminent philosophers 
and chemists of this age, the Swedish Pro- 
fessor Berzelius, confesses that, "with all 
the knowledge we possess of the forms of 
the body, considered as an instrument, and 
of the mixture and mutual bearings of the 
rudiments to one another, yet the cause 
of most of the phenomena within the ani- 
mal body lies so deeply hidden from our 
view that it certainly never will be found. 
We call this hidden cause vital power ; 
and, like many others who before us have 
in vain directed ' attention to this point, 



50 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

we make use of a word to which we can 
fix no idea. This power to live belongs 
not to the constituent parts of our bodies, 
nor docs it belong to them as an instru- 
ment, neither is it a simple power, but 
the result of the mutual operation of the 

instruments on one another a result which 

varies as the operations vary, and which 

often, from small changes and obstructions, 

then When our elementary 

hooks Inform US that the vital power in 
one place produced from the blood the 

fibres of the muscle, in another a bone, 

in a third a medulla of the brain, and 

in anol tin. certain humors which 

are destined to he < allied off, We know 

after this explanation as littl* e knew 

. . . Nothing of what chemistry 

I tis hi the smallest 

analogy to the operations of the nervous 



Is Religion worthy of Man's Study ? 51 

system, or affords us the least hint to- 
wards a knowledge of its occult nature ; 
and the chain of our experience must 
always end in something inconceivable. 
Unfortunately, this inconceivable something 
acts the principal part in animal chemis- 
try, and enters so into every process, even 
the most minute, that the highest know- 
ledge which we can attain is the know- 
ledge of the nature of the productions, 
whilst we are for ever excluded from the 
possibility of explaining how they are pro- 
duced;' * 

There is no reason, then, to discard or 
to neglect the study of religion because 
it teaches many truths above our com- 
prehension. We might as well cast aside 
human life on the same plea, for it, too, 

* Brunmark's translation of Baron Berzelius' View of the 
Progress and Present StUte of Animal Chemistry. 



52 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

has many secrets that are impenetrable. 
If we believe only in what is tangible or 
what falls under the perception of our 
senses, our horizon of knowledge must 
necessarily become very much narrowed 
and limited. As Paley remarks in his 
Evidences of Christianity, "the great pow- 
ers of nature are all invisible. Gravita- 
tion, electricity, magnetism, though con- 
stantly present and constantly exerting 
their influence ; though within us, near us, 
and about us ; though diffused throughout 
all space, overspreading the surface or 
penetrating the contexture of all bodies 
with which we are acquainted, depend up- 
on substances and actions which are total- 
ly concealed from our senses/' 

Apropos of this there is an amusing 
little incident told of the late Father La- 
cordaire, the eminent divine and orator of 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 53 

the Dominican Order. He was one Fri- 
day sitting at the table-d' liote in a res- 
taurant at Paris when a commercial tra- 
veller, who had made himself remarkable 
by his boisterous talk while trying to show 
himself a man of liberal ideas and entire- 
ly opposed to what he called superstition, 
in helping himself very plentifully to a 
dish of omelet passed the small remnants 
to the humble friar, and insolently re- 
marked : "As for me, monsieur, I do not 
believe in anything I do not understand." 
"Ah! indeed," said the monk. "And will 
you have the kindness to tell me, apro- 
pos of the omelet that you are now eat- 
ing, how is it that fire, which makes iron 
or lead soft and pliable, yet has the con- 
trary effect on an egg by making it hard ? " 
" I confess I do not understand it, Mon- 
sieur FAbbe." ."Well, then," said the 



54 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

monk, " I see that your not understanding 
it does not prevent you from believing in 
omelets, as do likewise all the rest of the 
world." 

We may rest assured that there was a 
good laugh at the expense of the commer- 
cial traveller, and that he was very silent 
during the rest of the meal. 

Simple as this little incident may appear, 
it carries with it a lesson patent to all. 

Religion alone explains — as far as can 
be explained— and certainly gives us all 
the knowledge as well as the means nec- 
essary to attain the end of our creation, 
and that is to love and serve God here in 
order that we may be happy with Him 
hereafter. Reaching that desirable end, all 
that is of any lasting value is thereby at- 
tained ; failing to secure it, all that is of 
any lasting value is for ever lost. The 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 55 

mind of every man, of every earnest, right 
thinking man, does not fail to tell him 
in unmistakable accents that nothing on 
earth, whether in the shape of worldly sci- 
ence, riches, honors, or pleasures, can ever 
satiate the cravings of his mind for know- 
ledge or the longings of his heart for love. 
He was made for God, and God alone, 
therefore, can adequately fill the void of 
the human soul and satisfy its aspirations. 
The study of religion, then, is the most 
important of all studies. How sublime it 
is, how elevating in its character, purifying 
in its nature, deeply moral in tone, and in- 
comparably grand in its range of objects ! 
It raises man above himself, makes him 
forget the petty interests and miserable 
seekings of this earthly life, and causes 
him to soar aloft in the contemplation of 
eternal truth. It makes a man conscious 



56 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

of his true dignity, shows him the value 
of his immortal soul, invests him with a 
more exalted sense of his responsibility, 
and enables him to see the action of Di- 
vine Providence in all the events of life. 
Though not gifted with great talents or 
deep learning, though walking in the hum- 
bler paths of life, yet, by means of his re- 
ligion and the contemplation of its mys- 
teries, the humblest Christian can reach, 
even here below, a higher sphere of thought 
than the brightest and most philosophic 
minds that depend on their own resources. 
Religion brings the clearest light to the 
mind, the greatest peace to the soul. It 
is the only power that can restrain from 
excess in prosperity, alleviate in distress, 
cheer in despondency, sweeten labor, light- 
en sorrow, banish envy and discontent, 
strengthen order, stabilitate government, 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study f 57 

and — far more important than all — bridge 
over the terrible chasm of the grave. 

No human science whatever can com- 
pare with religion, either in the certainty 
or the sublimity of its great teachings. 
Whilst thus justly extolling this study, far 
be it from us to depreciate any human 
science. Every science is good in itself 
and has a laudable end in view. When 
properly cultivated and earnestly pursued 
they most admirably show forth the wis- 
dom and power of God in every depart- 
ment of nature : " Coeli enarrant gloriam 
Dei, et opera ejus firmamentum " — The hea- 
vens declare the glory of God, and the fir- 
mament His works. 

Science and religion should go hand-in- 
hand. Human science and philosophy are 
the handmaids of religion, and religion 
blesses their efforts and crowns their la- 



58 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

bors. Many of the scientists and philoso- 
phers of the present age have striven with 
all their might to divorce science from re- 
ligion ; but they should not, and, in fact, 
never can, be divorced. There is no an- 
tagonism between them. It is absolutely 
impossible that there should be. God is 
the author of the natural as well as of the 
supernatural order ; and if there were any 
such opposition between the truths of 
one order and the truths of another, God 
would be contradicting Himself. Such an 
idea is absolutely repugnant to the infinite 
wisdom of God. The more human scien- 
ces become perfected and the more fully 
they attain their legitimate end, the more 
will the great truths of revelation be made 
evident to the world and shine with greater 
brilliancy. Then will all apparent contra- 
dictions and seeming opposition fade away 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 59 

and give place to the light of eternal truth. 
The Catholic Church in her last (Ecumen- 
ical Council of the Vatican, when treat- 
ing of the necessarily harmonious relations 
existing between reason and revelation, thus 
speaks of her attitude towards human sci- 
ence : " Far be it from the Church to ham- 
per the cultivation of human arts and sci- 
ences ; she, on the contrary, comes to their 
aid and assists them in many ways. For 
neither does she ignore nor despise the ad- 
vantages to life they bring in their train ; 
rather does she confess that the sciences, 
coming as they do from God, the Lord 
of all science, if they be treated with the 
proper spirit — by means of God's grace 1 — 
lead the mind back to Him." * 

As Lord Bacon said, a little knowledge 
leadeth away from God, but more know- 

* Cone. Vatic, cap. iv. De Fide et Ratione. 



60 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ledge bringeth one back again. The Catho- 
lic Church condemns only false science — 
the knowledge, based on false principles, 
that serves but to lead men astray from 
their true and high destiny. Hence she 
has justly condemned the following propo- 
sition : " Human reason is, without any re- 
gard to God, the only true arbiter of true 
and false, of good and evil ; it is its own 
law, it suffices by its natural powers to se- 
cure the happiness of men and of nations."* 
In the words of our illustrious Pontiff, 
Leo XIII., shortly before ascending the 
throne of Peter, the Catholic Church can- 
not look with favor on "that science which 
dives into matter and assigns it to eternity, 
that goes up to the firmament and de- 
scends into the bowels of the earth to 
look in vain for an argument with which 

* Syllabus. 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 61 

to destroy Biblical cosmogony ; that sci- 
ence which debases man to the level of 
the brute, and which, by its extravagances, 
shakes the very foundations of moral, do- 
mestic, and civil order, the Church cannot 
but oppose. Now, every man knows that, 
far from complaining, he ought to raise his 
hands to God in thanksgiving for having 
sent into this world that Infallible Autho- 
rity which, while it invokes every blessing 
for the present and for the future, likewise 
preserves every blessing for us by rescu- 
ing us from the impious hands of those 
who would snatch them from our grasp."* 
In this same most admirable pastoral 
letter — written bv the same skilful hand 
that holds so firmly, yet so gently, the 
helm of Peter's Bark — we find this strong 
and beautiful passage : " If the Church is 

* Cardinal Pecci's Pastoral Letter for 1877. 



62 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

alarmed at the ruin that a few vain men 
can make, who imagine they understand 
everything because they have a slight smat- 
tering of many things, she has every con- 
fidence in those who devote their minds 
to the deep and serious study of nature, 
because she knows that at the end of 
their researches they will find God, who 
displays Himself in His works with all 
the unimpeachable attributes of His power, 
wisdom, and goodness. If some learned 
sage, in studying nature, goes away from 
God, it is a sign that the heart of the un- 
fortunate man is already contaminated by 
the venom of infidelity that has entered 
into him through the avenue of culpable 
passions. He did not become an atheist be- 
cause he cultivated learning, which should 
naturally develop far nobler results. In- 
deed, the large majority of those who ac- 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 63 

quire great and lasting knowledge in the 
sciences through the studies they have 
gone through and by their ingenious dis- 
coveries, have, as it were, erected a lad- 
der with which to mount to heaven and 
glorify God." 

"The great astronomer Copernicus was 
profoundly religious. Kepler, another fa- 
ther of modern astronomy, thanked God 
for the pleasure He made him experi- 
ence in his ecstasies, in which he was 
transported by the contemplation of the 
works of His hands. Galileo, to whom 
experimental philosophy is indebted for so 
powerful an impetus, was led, by his stu- 
dies, to declare that the Holy Scriptures 
and nature alike point out the works of 
God : the first as dictated by the Holy 
Spirit, the second as the faithful per- 
former of His laws. 



64 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

" Linnaeus, by his study of nature, was 
so inflamed that the words which dropped 
from his lips were like those of a psalm : 
1 God eternal/ he exclaimed, ' Immense, 
Omniscient, Omnipotent ! Thou hast ap- 
peared to me, in some manner, in the 
works of creation, and I have been over- 
whelmed with wonder. In all the works 
of Thy hand, even the smallest and most 
insignificant, what power, what wisdom, 
and what unspeakable perfection do I be- 
hold ! . . . Fontenelle, who, it appears, 
was regarded as the encyclopaedia of his 
time in the France of the eighteenth 
century, already poisoned by the breath 
of infidelity, could not help saying : ' The 
importance of the study of physics does 
not proceed so much from the fact that 
it satisfies our curiosity, but because it 
lifts us up to a less imperfect knowledge 



Is Religion worthy of Man s Study ? 65 

of the Author of the universe, and re- 
vives in our minds the sentiments of 
veneration and admiration which we owe 
Him.' Alexander Volta, the immortal in- 
ventor of the voltaic battery, was a sin- 
cere Catholic, and, in times that were 
not propitious to faith, gloried in being a 
Catholic and did not blush at the Gos- 
pel. Faraday, the illustrious chemist, saw 
a means bv which to reach God in the 
science he was passionately studying, and 
he could not tolerate infidels." * 

The names of others no less distin- 
guished in science, and who at the same 
time were strong believers in Christianity, 
mi^ht easily be brought forward in no 
small number, but we shall only mention 
a few : Sir Isaac Newton, the great as- 
tronomer and mathematician ; Hugh Mil- 

* N. Y. Fireman's Journal's translation. 



66 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ler and Sir Roderick Murchison, geolo- 
gists ; Sir Humphry Davy, George Ste- 
phenson, and last, though not least, Fa- 
ther Secchi, of the Roman Observatory. 
One of the most interesting and impor- 
tant meetings of scientific men that ever 
assembled was that of the British Asso- 
ciation in 1865, when a' declaration, 
drawn up and signed by six hundred and 
seventeen of its members — many of whom 
hold the highest rank and influence in 
scientific circles — was given to the world, 
solemnly professing their belief in the in- 
spiration of the Bible and the absence 
of any incompatibility between its utter- 
ances and the conclusions of science. 
Their resolutions are well worthy of peru- 
sal and meditation : 

" We, the undersigned students of the 
natural sciences, desire to express our 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 67 

sincere regret that researches into scien- 
tific truth are perverted by some in our 
own times into occasions for casting 
doubt upon the truth and authenticity 
of the Holy Scriptures. 

"We conceive that it is impossible for 
the word of God as written in the book 
of Nature, and God's word written in 
Holy Scripture, to contradict each other, 
however much they may appear to differ. 

"We are not forgetful that physical 
science is not complete, but is only in a 
condition of progress, and that at present our 
finite reason enables us only to see as through 
a glass darkly, and we confidently believe 
that a time will come when the two records 
will be seen to agree in every particular. 

"We cannot but deplore that natural 
science should be looked upon with sus- 
picion by many who do not make a study 



68 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

of it, merely on account of the unadvised 
manner in which some are placing it in 
opposition to Holy Writ. 

" We believe that it is the duty of every 
scientific student to investigate nature sim- 
ply for the purpose of elucidating truth, 
and that if he finds that some of his re- 
sults appear to be in contradiction to the 
written Word, or rather to his own inter- 
pretations of it, which may be erroneous, 
he should not presumptuously affirm that 
his own conclusions must be right and the 
statements of Scripture wrong. Rather 
leave the two side by side till it shall 
please God to allow us to see the manner 
in which they may be reconciled ; and in- 
stead of insisting upon the seeming diffe- 
rences between science and the Scriptures, 
it would be as well to rest in faith upon 
the points in which they agree." 



Is Religion worthy of Mans Study ? 69 

This is the true spirit in which to en- 
gage in studies of this nature, and it was 
a noble declaration for Christian scientists 
to make in the face of this scientific nine- 
teenth century. Dr. Samuel Kins, F.R.A.S., 
in his very able and deeply interesting work, 
The Harmony of the Bible with Science, 
gives the entire list of names of the sign- 
ers of this declaration, among which we 
notice such distinguished men as Sir Da- 
vid Brewster, Sir J. R. Bennett, M.D., 
the Balfours, Abercrombies, Andersons, 
Bosworth, Fraser, Gibb, De La Harp, 
Dr. McLeod, Sir Charles Reed 7 and Sir 
John Richardson, M.D., LL.D., members 
of the leading scientific associations of 
Europe. 

This study, then, is not only grand and 
sublime, but also most indispensable. It 
is the " unum necessarium " — the one thing 



70 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

necessary for us all. We can attain our 
true destiny without the study of astrono- 
my or of foreign languages, mathematics, 
geology, or philosophy ; but it is impos- 
sible without the knowledge of religion. 
It is a science within reach of all. It 
does not require great talents or broad 
education. The means are always at hand 
for its attainment. No one is debarred 
from the undertaking. The poor as well 
as the rich, the illiterate as well as the 
learned, the simple-minded as well as the 
philosopher, can drink at the same foun- 
tain of eternal truth. All that is required 
is simply good-will, earnestness, applica- 
tion. Ignorance of religion is, then, a 
crime when there are so many means with- 
in reach for obtaining the necessary know- 
ledge. Indifference with regard to it is 
an outrage against the Almighty, an in- 



Is Religion worthy of Man's Study ? 71 

suit to Christ, a mark of contempt for 
His labors, His sufferings, His commands, 
His warnings : (< He that believeth not 
shall be condemned/' 

Some form of religion, then, should be 
embraced, but only one can be true. '- One 
Lord, one faith, one baptism." No man 
is free to choose his own way or to 
make his own creed, otherwise there were 
no need for Christ to come upon earth, if 
men could save their souls without His 
aid. 

Coming as He did, it was undoubtedly 
to point out the way, the only sure one ; 
and in that path, narrow as it may seem, 
every one is obliged to walk, otherwise he 
is on the wrong road, the broad one lead- 
ing to destruction, and many there are 
who go by the same. 

Now, as to what is the way, which is 



J 2 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

the path, what is the rule of faith laid 
down by Christ and which we are all 
bound to follow, we hope to be able to 
explain in the following chapter. 



ILlbat iRule of faitft was lait> frown 
bp Gbrist? 




HE creature owes to his Creator 
the worship of his whole being. 
He should adore Him with all 
the powers of his body and with all the 
faculties "of his mind. He should bow 
down not only his will in obedience to 
the Lord's commands, but also his intel- 
lect to whatever He proposes to our be- 
lief. There are some very loftv and im- 
portant truths within the reach of human 
reason — such as, for instance, the existence 
of a Supreme, Eternal Being who is the 
First Cause, the providence of God, and 
the immortalitv of the soul. It stands to 



74 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

reason, likewise, that there are, and must 
necessarily be, many truths above our 
comprehension and beyond the reach of 
our intellect and its limited capabilities. 
There are many truths, therefore, known 
to God and not known to men, and these 
He can most certainly communicate 'in 
the manner and in the measure He deems 
fit. There is no repugnance, then, in the 
idea of revelation ; certainly none on the 
part of God, who as God is omniscient, 
and consequently no truth can be hidden 
or unknown to Him ; and who is omnipo- 
tent as well as omniscient, and therefore 
innumerable means are at His command 
for making known these truths to man- 
kind. 

There is no repugnance to revelation on 
the part of man, for, being gifted with 
reason and intelligence, his mind has been 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 75 

formed for the reception of truth and the 
consequent increase of knowledge. Xor 
can there be any repugnance arising from 
the truths themselves : for though they may 
transcend the natural power of the intel- 
lect, yet they can be received, entertained, 
and believed on the authority of God 
Himself, resting, as they do, upon His 
divine veracity. 

In the beginning man was gifted with 
a sublime knowledge of the truth. There 
was then no disorder in his intellect, no 
weakness in his will. His mind undevi- 
atinglv sought the trite, his will the good. 
But when he sinned, seeking too curiously 
that knowledge which was forbidden him, 
sin and evil entered and cast a cloud 
upon his intellect, warped his judgment, 
weakened his once powerful will, and de- 
praved his affections, Man then gradually 



76 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

pursued a downward course. For a con- 
siderable time he preserved the principles 
of natural religion and adhered to patri- 
archal traditions ; but these, too, in time 
became clouded or corrupted, so that even 
the knowledge of the one true God would 
have been lost to the world if Divine 
Providence had not selected one race or 
people and made them the depository of 
His truth. 

The Jewish people then alone excepted, 
all nations of the earth lived estranged 
from God, plunged in idolatry and fol- 
lowing their own blind passions : " And 
as they liked not to have God in their 
knowledge, God delivered them up to a 
reprobate sense, to do those things which 
are not convenient, being filled with all 
iniquity, malice, fornication-, covetousness, 
wickedness, full of envy, murder, conten- 



Wliat Rule of Faith was laid down ? jj 

tion, deceit, malignity, whisperers, detrac- 
tors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, 
haughty, inventors of evil things, disobe- 
dient to parents, foolish, dissolute, with- 
out affection, without fidelity, without 
mercy. Who, having known the justice 
of God, did not understand that they who 
do such things are worthy of death : and 
not only they who do them, but they 
also who consent to them that do them." * 
From this terrible arraignment of pagan 
society by the great Apostle St. Paul 
we can easily see that corruption was on 
the increase up to the very dawn of the 
Christian era. Neither philosophy nor 
literature and the arts were able to stem 
the fearful tide. If the highest culture 
that mankind ever reached, leaving God 
and His knowledge aside, could have pre- 

* Epistle to the Romans i. 28-32. 



;S The Keys of the Kingdom. 

:ed the grossest immoral:: eece 

and Rome would have been successful 
in a:: ain ing this result ; but the mc: 
advaj in mere material civilization 

per did the :ne immersed in the 

basest sensuality and the most barbarous 
R proud s of 

as Canon Farrai 
marks, foi enormous wealth, irs un- 

bounded self-indu its coarse and 

tasteless luxu: 

irity an apathy, 

its hopeless 1 
its i: ;ble sadness and weari- 

ness, its 25 alike of 

ielity and 
of men strove long and obstina: 

without God, and they found only 
rry and despair. 

* The Early Days of Christianity, p. 2. 



What Rule of Faith was laid down f 79 

The fulness of time had come and God 
stooped in loving merer to fallen man. 
It became accessary for Him to man: 
Himself and His divine truth to the hu- 
man race, otherwise all hope would h 
perished for ever. The Eternal Father, 
out of love for those whom He created 
in the image of the Godhead, sent His 
own Beloved Son, the Second Person of 
rr-adorable Trinity, to earth to be 
clothed with our humanity, in order that 
44 in the likeness of our sinful flesh" He 
might draw near to us and draw us nearer 
to Him. teach us "the way, the truth, 
life," and lay down His life for us 
that we might have life more abundantly. 

Hence Christ, the "true light which 
enlighteneth every man that cometh into 
this world," came upon earth to enlighten 
us, to teach us the great mysteries of re- 



8o The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ligion, to point out the only true way to 
salvation and eternal happiness. Having 
come to show us the way, which the vast 
majority of men had totally lost sight of 
through the darkness of paganism, the 
mists of error, and the oppressive atmos- 
phere of prejudice and passion, it would 
be the height of folly as well as of in- 
gratitude to refuse to walk in the path 
thus pointed out, or to presume to se- 
lect one for one's self other than that 
mapped out so clearly by Infinite Wis- 
dom Incarnate. 

"Wishing all men," without distinction 
of race or color or station in life, " to 
be saved and to arrive at the knowledge 
of truth," as the Sacred Scriptures de- 
clare, this wish cannot be a vain or il- 
lusory one on the part of God. There- 
fore He must certainly place within man's 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 81 

reach the means necessary for attaining 
this desirable end. Coming", as He did, 
to point out the way, that way ought 
to be a clear way, a sure way, a way 
open to all and within reach of the il- 
literate as well as the learned, the poor 
as well as the rich, the simple-minded as 
well as the philosopher (for the soul of 
the one is as precious in His sight as 
the soul of the other), and a way adapt- 
ed to every clime, to every age, and to 
every disposition: "This shall be unto 
you a straight way, so that fools shall 
not err therein,"* 

Christ's stay upon earth was to be short, 
and the time devoted to His public mis- 
sion was to be still shorter — only three 
years out of the thirty-three of His mor- 
tal life — yet He accomplished the great 

* Isaias xxxv. 3. 



82 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

objects for which He left His heavenly 
home. He came to offer Himself a will- 
ing Victim for the sins of men, and to 
establish a Church which was to be the 
depository of the infinite merits acquired 
by His labors, sufferings, and death, and 
the depository likewise of all the teach- 
ings He wished to inculcate in the minds 
of men. Before departing from earth He 
selected His Apostles to continue the 
work which He so gloriously began. To 
accomplish this grandest of missions He 
endowed them with His own divine au- 
thority. The same commission He re- 
ceived from His Heavenly Father He 
gave unto them : "As the Father hath 
sent Me, I also send you."* "All power 
is given to Me in heaven and on earth," 
He declares, and by virtue of that power 

* St. John xx. 21. 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 83 

He sends them forth in His own name 
to bear His message unto all men: "Go 
ye, therefore, and teach all nations ; bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
teaching them to observe all things what- 
soever I have commanded you.'' And as 
this divine mission was not to end with 
their lives, but was to continue during all 
time through the ministry of their official 
successors, He solemnly declares: "And 
behold, I am with you all days, even to 
the consummation of the world."* 

Thus did Christ appoint a body of 
teachers for His Church — a body of 
teachers that was never to fail, " the 
ministers of Christ and the dispensers of 
the mysteries of God " f unto all genera- 
tions. To secure their union for evermore, 

* St. Matt, xxviii. 1S-20. f 1 Cor. iv. 1. 



84 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

to prevent all schisms and heresies from 
rending His Church, He appointed the 
Blessed Peter (and in him his successors) 
the centre of authority, the immovable 
rock on which He built His Church : 
" Thou art Peter [or a rock] ; and on this 
rock I will build my Church, and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
And I will give to thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou 
shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound 
also in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in 
heaven.' 1 * 

This Church, then, built upon St. Peter 
— the "rock" — our Saviour made the de- 
pository of His infinite merits, of all His 
teaching and all His power. He thus 
founded a living teaching authority which 

* St. Matt. xvi. 18, iq. 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 85 

was to speak to all men in His name, to 
be for ever under His own most special 
protection, to withstand all the assaults of 
hell, and to be preserved from all false 
teaching by the perpetual, unfailing guid- 
ance of the Holy Spirit : " And I will ask 
the Father, and He shall give you another 
Paraclete, that He may abide with you for 
ever : the Spirit of Truth, whom the world 
cannot receive."* "But the Paraclete, the 
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send 
in My name, He will teach you all things, 
and bring all things to your mind, whatso- 
ever I shall have said to you/'f 

This teaching authority of the Church 
which is to last for all time and to be for 
ever guided by the Spirit of Truth all 
men are obliged to hear and heed as they 
would Christ Himself : " He that heareth 

* St. John xiv, 16, 17. \ Id. 26. 



86 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

you heareth Me; and he that despiseth 
you despiseth Me ; and he that despiseth 
Me despiseth Him that sent Me." * This 
declaration is plain, powerful, authorita- 
tive. This living voice of the Church, 
then, is to be heard by all ; this is the 
rule of faith to be accepted by all, in 
every age, in every clime, no matter how 
brilliant their talents, how deep their learn- 
ing, how lofty their position, how unbend- 
ing their pride, or how strong their pas- 
sions. The voice of the Church is, there- 
fore, the voice of God, and its authority 
can never fail, for it rests upon the ve- 
racity of the Incarnate God, who has 
solemnly promised to abide with it for 
ever and to shield it against all the as- 
saults of earth and hell. " Heaven and 
earth shall pass away before My words 

* St. Luke x. 16. 



What Rtcle of Faith was laid down ? 87 

shall fail." If the Catholic Church could 
be proved to have at any time failed as 
the teacher and guide of men, if it ever 
taught error or heresy or held up a false 
standard of morality, then Christ Himself 
would have failed in His promises, and 
Christianity as a divine system would fall 
to the ground, the greatest and saddest 
wreck in the universe. So plain and clear 
are those promises that they leave no 
chance of escape out of this dilemma — 
namely, either Christ was able to fulfil 
His promises or He was not. If able, as 
all who hold to His divine mission must 
necessarily believe, then the Catholic 
Church has never deviated for a moment 
from the true faith in the past, and never 
can deviate from it in the future. If not 
able to do what He so solemnly declared, 
then He was. not what He represented 



88 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Himself to be, and merits not our love or 
trust. This is the reason why men of 
education who, unfortunately for them- 
selves, lose the faith and abandon the Ca- 
tholic Church, sink at once into infidelity. 
There is no half-way house for them ; they 
are logical enough to see that there is no 
solid standing-ground between full Catho- 
lic faith and agnosticism, atheism, or infi- 
delity, which practically are one and the 
same thing. When they fail to cling to 
the Rock of Peter there is no plank of 
safety whereon to lay hold amid the en- 
gulfing waves of error and heresy. Hence 
the Catholic Rule of Faith, the living, in- 
fallible voice of the Church, speaking to 
all ages and generations of men in the 
name of Christ Himself, perpetually assist- 
ed and protected by Him and guided by 
His Holy Spirit, is the only true, clear, 



What Rule of Faith was laid dozvn ? 89 

and sure rule by following which men are 
to be saved. 

Our separated brethren, however, declare 
that the Bible, and the Bible only, is the 
sure rule of faith ; so let us examine calm- 
ly and see if this claim have any founda- 
tion on which it may rest and satisfy the 
just and natural requirements of the hu- 
man mind. 

Any one who has carefully and without 
prejudice read the history of the Catholic 
Church and who knows aught of its con- 
stant practice need not be told how much 
she has always venerated the Bible, how 
jealously she guarded it for hundreds of 
years in her own maternal bosom, how fre- 
quently she shielded it from the ravages of 
pagans, barbarians, and heretics, and handed 
it down pure and intact to the countless 
generations that were to follow. 



90 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

It would be well for those outside the 
fold to bear in mind the undeniable fact 
that were it not for the Catholic Church 
the Bible would not be now in existence ; 
that it was she who preserved most faith- 
fully and gathered together the various 
parts of this Divine Book ; that she cher- 
ished it and guarded it as her greatest 
treasure during all these long ages, and 
saved it from desecration as well as muti- 
lation at the hands of its enemies ; and 
that, in fine, holding it up to loving reve- 
rence, she makes it tend towards the spi- 
ritual progress, the eternal salvation and 
sanctification, of her countless members. 

For nigh fifteen hundred years the Bible 
was in the sole possession of the Catholic 
Church, which handed it down to succeed- 
ing ages pure and intact ; and yet Luther 
and his followers claim it as their own 



JJ^/iat Rule of Faith was laid down ? 91 

peculiar property. And how, I may justly 
ask, can any one outside of our holy reli- 
gion, rejecting its authority and thus sev- 
ering himself from that unbroken chain 
which, extending through so many ages of 
Catholic faith, connects the true members 
of God's Church of our day with Christ 
and His apostles — how, I ask, can such a 
one even prove that there is a Bible, that 
it is really authentic, canonical, and divinely 
inspired in all its parts ? It is impossible, 
absolutely impossible, without recurring to 
that t very same authority which he so con- 
temptuously rejects and heartily despises. 
Appeal has to be made to that tradition 
which has been faithfully preserved in the 
Catholic Church from the first ages of the 
Christian era. But heretics do not acknow- 
ledge tradition, therefore no proof remains 
to them whereby to establish conclusively 



92 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

the authenticity, veracity, and canonicity of 
the Scriptures. The Bible itself does not 
declare the canonicity and inspiration of 
the various parts by which it is constituted, 
and it is beyond all doubt, to any one suf- 
ficiently acquainted with the ecclesiastical 
history of the first ages of Christianity, 
that some of the Scriptural writings now 
regarded as authentic were for a consider- 
able time considered by many really doubt- 
ful until their canonicity was defined by 
Church authority. On what authority do 
Protestants accept one book as divinely in- 
spired and reject another as uninspired ? 
Why not accept the writings of St. Barna- 
bas as well as those of St. Paul ? They 
were both companions and apostolic mis- 
sionaries, and certainly there are many beau- 
tiful and holy sentiments to be found in the 
epistle attributed to St. Barnabas. It was 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 93 

not received by the Council of Nice, and, 
therefore, those who reject it do so simply 
on the authority of the Church Catholic. 

But, after all, how can he who rejects 
the claims of this same holy Church, 
" the pillar and ground of truth," to his 
submission and obedience ; who believes 
that it was buried in ignorance, error, and 
corruption, and that it " fell away from the 
true faith of Christ " — how can he trust that 
same Church as to the preservation of the 
Scriptures ? Would it not be very reason- 
able and very natural to suppose, under 
such an hypothesis, that this same Church, 
thus deserted by the grace of. God and the 
indwelling light of the Holy Spirit, had 
changed the original text and corrupted 
the word of God ? What surety, then, can 
such a one have that he really and truly 
possesses the Scriptures, such as they were 



94 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

given by the apostles and evangelists ? 
None, absolutely none 1 

If the Church were the enemy, as it is 
declared, of the Bible, how can we explain 
the fact that for fifteen hundred years she 
preserved that work which is supposed to 
be an evidence of her own falling away 
from the true Gospel — an evidence of her 
own corruption in doctrines and morals ? 
She would certainly have been wanting in 
worldly wisdom and worldly policy — a lack 
from which her enemies do not suppose 
her to suffer — thus laboriously to preserve 
the instrument of her own assumed de- 
struction. 

And what difficulties did she not have 
to surmount in order to preserve that holy 
work during so many ages ! The art of 
printing was unknown until the middle of 
the fifteenth century. A book, especially 



What Ride of Faith was laid down ? 95 

one so voluminous as the Bible, took a 
great amount of time, labor, and anxiety 
to copy, and, when copied, a still greater 
solicitude and watchfulness in order to pre- 
serve it from the jealous hand of pagan- 
ism and the ignorance of the barbaric 
hordes. Many a noble and heroic Chris- 
tian suffered himself to be tortured, and 
even led to death, sooner than surrender 
those holy books which he prized dearer 
than life itself. Let us not forget the glo- 
rious examples and sacred memories of a 
St. Felix and a St. Eutropius, who under- 
went inexpressible pain and torture, and 
even a cruel death, rather than deliver up 
the Holy Scriptures into the hands of the 
persecutors of their faith. 

Many are apt to lose sight of such mod- 
els ; and they who accuse our Holy Church 
of being inimical to the Word of God ought 



96 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

conscientiously to consider how much she 
reverences those who laid down their lives 
in order to preserve unto an ungrateful 
posterity that same volume which is most 
abused by those who profess to ttse it most. 

The possession of a copy of the Bible in 
the middle ages, even up to the time in 
which Gutenburg flourished — the possession 
of such a work (in manuscript, of course, 
as it had to be) was considered a treasure. 
At least a year's labor of an exact penman 
was required to make a correct copy of the 
Holy Book. 

The Venerable Bede tells us that even 
from his seventh year he devoted no in- 
considerable part of his time to the medi- 
tation of the Scriptures. It was the chief 
exercise in which the monks and eccle- 
siastics of old took a holy delight and 
willingly expended their time and labor. 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 97 

Poets drew their inspiration from the 
sacred pages, statesmen their great prin- 
ciples of law, painters and sculptors the 
grand subjects of their noblest efforts. 

The great mass of the people could not 
read ; and even if they were so capable, 
they could not procure, without the great- 
est difficulty and expense, a copy of any 
remarkable work, especially such a one as 
the Bible. They were not, however, de- 
prived of its holy and salutary instructions, 
for everything seemed to speak to them 
in living expressions of Scripture. Their 
pastors explained to them the Divine 
Word ; the altar and Holy Sacrifice re- 
called to their minds the life and death 
of their adorable Saviour ; the life-like 
marble, the glowing canvas, embellished 
by artists never equalled in more modern 
times — all, all breathed forth the spirit 



98 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

and imaged the reality, beauty, and splen- 
dor of the divine writings. 

We shall now consider the light in which 
the Catholic Church views the Bible, and 
inquire into the direct aim of the inspired 
writers in its composition. 

In the first place, the Church does not 
acknowledge that there ever was a law 
given by Christ or His apostles, and she 
herself never promulgated one, decreeing 
that all the faithful, indiscriminately, should 
read the Bible. Never was any precept 
given to that effect, nor did there ever 
exist any real necessity for such a regula- 
tion. 

Our Divine Redeemer, in founding our 
holy religion, proclaimed, by His own 
sacred lips, the saintly doctrines which 
He came upon earth to inculcate, and 
everywhere announced by word of mouth 



What Rule of Fait Ji was laid down ? 99 

the great truths of His Gospel. He wrote 
nothing Himself, nor did He command 
anything to be written. He gave oral in- 
structions to His apostles and disciples, 
and commanded them to do as He had 
done, and to go forth and teach all nations 
whatsoever they had learned from Him. 

Conformably to the desires of their Mas- 
ter, they went forth and spread the truths 
of faith in every land, and communicated 
the light of the Gospel unto every peo- 
ple. They established almost numberless 
churches by their preaching and example, 
and had not recourse to books for the dif- 
fusion of Christianity. 

In no part of the Scriptures can there 

be found a precept commanding their uni- 

al perusal. If Christ or His apostles 

had so wished, He or they would certainly 

have declared it ; ' but this they have not 



ioo The Keys of . 

done, as tradition t and no proof can 

be brought forward to the contrary. 

True it is that our Saviour s 5 rch 

the Scriptures/' or, according to the more 
proper version, and that sustained by the 
eminent Cardinal Wiseman and the dis- 
tinguished Protestant bishop, Dr. J ebb, of 
Limerick, "You search the Scriptu: 
which, therefore, is to be taken in the 
indicative and not the niocxL 

This was not addressed to His 
but to the Scribes and Pharisees, who 
denied His mission and divinity, and whom 
He consequently ired 

writings, principally those of Moses and 
the prophets, who, as He declared, g 
limony of Him. He certainly did not 
r to the New Testament, for at the 
time He spoke no such work exist 

Had our Blessed Saviour intended that 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? ioi 

the Bible should be the only rule of faith 
and the exclusive means of salvation, He 
would certainly have devised some means 
whereby that sacred book could have been 
placed in the hands of all, since it was, 
under the supposition, absolutely necessary 
for all In that case He undoubtedly 
would not have had the discovery of the 
art of printing delayed until nearly four- 
teen hundred years afterwards. 

Moreover, if ever there did exist any 
obligation or indispensable necessity for the 
universal reading of the Bible, it should 
certainly have been in force particularly in 
the beginning of the Christian era, when 
nations were to be brought into the fold 
and various churches established. But 
most of the Christian churches were found- 
ed by the apostles and their immediate 
successors, by the preaching of the Word, 



102 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

and without the diffusion of books of 
Scripture. St. Irenaeus, who lived at no 
very distant time from the apostles, and 
who flourished in the second century, de- 
clares that "the barbarous nations learned 
the faith without the aid of letters " — " Gen- 
tes barbarcz sine litter is fidem didicerunt." 
As St. Matthew's Gospel was not writ- 
ten until six years after the Ascension of 
our Lord, and St. John's Gospel not un- 
til sixty-three years afterwards, thousands, 
therefore, were received into the Church 
before one word of the New Testament 
was written, three thousand having been 
converted by the first sermon of St. Peter, 
as we may see by the second chapter of 
the Acts of the Apostles. Many thou- 
sands were received before St. John's Gos- 
pel was written, millions before all the in- 
spired writings were gathered together and 



What Rule of Faith zaas laid down ? 103 

formed into one volume, and whole na- 
tions and hundreds of millions before the 
discovery of the art of printing. How, 
then, were all these generations of men to 
learn the truths of religion, if the Bible 
were the only rule of faith ? Surely it 
would have been impossible. It would not 
only be unreasonable to expect it, but also 
contrary to all our ideas of the goodness 
of God and the infinite mercy of Christ, 
who wishes "all men to be saved and to 
arrive at the knowledge of truth/' 

Our Blessed Saviour did not say to His 
apostles, Go, write the New Testament, 
discover the art of printing, and hand the 
Bible to every creature; but "Go, teach 
all nations"; "Go ye into the whole world 
and preach the Gospel to every creature. 
He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved; but he that believeth not shall be 



104 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

condemned" — or, as the Protestant version 
expresses it, "shall be damned."* 

" How, then, shall they call on him," 
says St. Paul, " in whom they have not 
believed ? Or how shall they believe Him 
of whom they have not heard ? And how 
shall they hear without a preacher ? And 
how can they preach unless they be sent ? 
As it is written : " How beautiful are the 
feet of them that preach the Gospel of 
peace, of them that bring glad tidings 
of good things ! But all do not obey 
the Gospel. For Isaias saith : Lord, who 
hath believed bur report ? Faith, then, com- 
eth by hearing, and hearing by the Word 
of Christ. But I say : Have they not 
heard ? Yea, verily, their sound went over 
all the earth, and their words unto the 
ends of the whole world." f 

* St. Mark xvi. 15, 16. f Romans x. 14-19. 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 105 

It is certain that the Holy Scriptures 
contain most of the great truths and dog- 
mas of religion ; but unassisted by the tra- 
ditions of the early Church, which give to 
us the substance of the oral instructions 
of Christ and His apostles, as well as the 
meaning of the forms of language then in 
use — unassisted by these traditions and un- 
sustained by the living, infallible authority 
in the Church, the Bible, of itself, would 
be insufficient for the formation of a re- 
ligious people perfectly united and pos- 
sessing the same invariable tenets, entirely 
agreeing in all important points of doc- 
trine. 

How difficult is the understanding of 
the Bible ; how far above our comprehen- 
sion, and above the reach of our reason 
and intellect, # are many of its teachings 
and mysteries ! 



io6 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Who can fully understand that divinely- 
inspired work, whose history spreads over 
such an immense space of time, whose 
authors lived at such long intervals from 
one another, writing in various tongues, 
residing in different localities, possessing 
different characters and dispositions, and 
yet all being instruments in the hands of 
God for the diffusion of His Divine Word 
— that Divine Book, remarkable for its 
grandeur and at the same time its sim- 
plicity ; now relating the most wonderful 
prodigies, and then recounting the most or- 
dinary and apparently insignificant events ; 
bringing us back to the creation of the 
world, into the garden of delights ; point- 
ing out to us our noble origin, mourning 
over our fall ; leading us from the know- 
ledge of patriarchal life to that of the 
mysterious wanderings of the chosen race 



IV'. of F.i:. 

and the r 

lished by G h His people — 

who would dare say that he can compre- 
hend the wonder:' th and science :: 
that book, so full of divine secrets, the 
' truths, the m nys- 
:-s. sufficient to baffle the greatest hu- 

dll, gen id knowledge, and 

found the pride of the wisest >n earth? 
How many years of study and labor, 
joined with the most fervent and frequ 
prayer, did not the Fathers and Doctors 
of the Church spend in the tion 

and interpretation of the Sacred Scrip- 
And yet. with all their learning 
and wisdom, with all the aid they re 
from Heaven *and all the help that hu:v 
science could afford them, they 
they felt th 
yet sounded., many mysterious passages 



xo8 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

not yet explored, and many secrets not 
yet disclosed to their investigating and in- 
quiring glance. 

By some strange contradiction, however, 
in human nature, how many there are who 
delude themselves with the idea that they 
can fully comprehend that mysterious 
book ! They all admit the necessity of 
an instructor in every other branch of 
science ; but " the science of the Scrip- 
tures," says the great St. Jerome, "is the 
only one which all persons indiscriminate- 
ly claim as their own. This the babbling 
old woman, this the doting old man, this 
the wordy sophist take upon themselves, 
tear to tatters, teach before they them- 
selves have learned." * 

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church 
from the very beginning of her existence 

* Epist. liii. ad Paulinam. 



llVuzi Ride of Faith was laid down ? 109 

admitted that the Bible was a study, the 
immense depth of which could never be 
sufficiently fathomed. They loved and re- 
vered it, and many a lesson of wisdom 
and virtue they drew from its holy pages 
for their own instruction and sanctifica- 
tion, as well as for the edification and en- 
lightenment of those entrusted to their 
care. They did not look upon it, how- 
ever, as a complete and perfect rule of 
faith, as one containing all things neces- 
sary to be known and be believed, and as 
one from which each individual was to 
form, his creed. They possessed another 
light, which they acknowledged as coming 
likewise from the Source of all light, and 
that is divine tradition, preserved inviolate 
and handed down to us from the time of 
Christ and His apostles. It is by this 
sacred light and the decision of the infalli- 



1 1 o The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ble Church that we believe the Bible to 
be divinely inspired in all its parts. As 
Lacordaire, the great French orator, de- 
clared : " Tradition is everywhere the mo- 
ther of religion ; it precedes and engenders 
sacred books, as language precedes and en- 
genders scripture ; its existence is rendered 
immovable in' the sacred books, as the ex- 
istence of the Word is rendered immov- 
able in Scripture. A sacred book is a re- 
ligious tradition which has had strength 
enough to sign its name." 

The Bible teaches us many truths, but 
not all truth, as it was never so intended. 
Many outside the fold of the Church be- 
lieve doctrines for which they will look in 
vain for proof in the Sacred Scriptures. 
They cannot, for instance, prove from the 
Bible the authenticity or inspiration of its 
various parts, nor why they worship on 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 1 1 1 

Sunday, the first day of the week, rather 
than on the seventh, or Sabbath day. 

If we consider the age in which we live, 
when copies of the Scriptures are spread 
over the world with the greatest profusion, 
and education, superficial though it be, is 
generally diffused, how many hundreds and 
thousands, ay, millions, there are who are 
not able to read, and who, if they were, 
could not understand the sacred writings ! 

How is it possible, then, to admit the 
proposition that an omnipotent God, so 
rich in mercy and goodness, in kindness 
and divine charity, should have appointed 
as the only means of salvation, as the only 
rule of faith, one so much above the ca- 
pacity of the greater number of those for 
whom it was intended ? Is this the Gospel 
which Christ said He came on earth to 
preach to the poor ? Is this the prophecy 



H2 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

of Isaias which He so earnestly declared 
He came to fulfil ? 

No, my friends, Christ never demands 
anything impossible of the human race. 
Wishing " all men to be saved, and to ar- 
rive at the knowledge of truth" as He 
Himself so forcibly declared by word and 
deed, Fie placed means at their disposal 
within the reach and capacity of all. For 
that purpose He established His holy 
Church, which He enlightened and never 
ceases to enlighten with His own most 
admirable light ; a Church in which He 
gives forth mysteries capable of confound- 
ing human pride, and yet satisfying an ex- 
alted and enlightened humility — truths 
worthy of the study of the greatest intel- 
lects, and yet not cruelly astounding the 
lowly and the ignorant ; a Church conde- 
scending with the simple, instructing all, 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 113 

comforting all, cheering and blessing all, 
whether noble or ignoble, rich or poor, 
learned or unlearned — making itself, in 
one word, like St. Paul, " all unto all," 
that it might gain all to Christ and to 
His holy religion. And what a religion! 
How truly divine in its origin and its 
teachings ! How beautifully it accommo- 
dates itself to the wants of our poor hu- 
man nature, whether in its loftiest aspira- 
tions or its humblest wishes and desires ! 
What food for the deepest and most ex- 
alted contemplation ; what comfort for the 
wearisome ; what consolation for the sor- 
rowful ; what hope for the despondent and 
strength for the weak ! 

Our Holy Mother the Church, knowing 
full well the infirmity of our nature and 
confidently relying on that infallibility pro- 
mised to her by her Divine Founder, does 



1 14 The Keys 

not permit her children to be led away by 
every wind of doctrine or tossed about on 

1 of error. Hence it is that 
has always deprecated the pernicious prin- 
::plc : ~/v:.\v :: in regard to 

Scriptural interpretation, which principle 
has been the cause of so much evil, 

;;nator and propagator of every error and 
heresy that ever disturbed the Christian 
community. 

How fallacious is such a method : how 
condemnable when examined by the crite- 
rion of all ages previous to Luther's un- 
happy advent : how evidently 
Christ's unchangeable truth, contradictor}* 
to Scripture, and terribly pernicious in its 
consequences ! Such a principle is at war 
with the experience of ages and with com- 
mon sense itself. 

That each individual is to form his faith 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 115 

from a book — divine though it be, yet still 
a book — intensely deep in its mysteries, dif- 
ficult of comprehension, having various pe- 
culiarities of style, describing times and 
fashions long since forgotten, using expres- 
sions and figures long since obsolete and 
buried in oblivion — that such a work should 
be placed in the hands of all indiscriminate- 
ly for perusal, and the passing of their in- 
dividual judgment thereon, is the most ab- 
surd and preposterous doctrine ever pro- 
posed to mankind. 

We have only to study the history of the 
past three centuries in order to become 
convinced of the vagaries, aberrations, and, 
I am sorry to say, abominations which have 
been the natural consequence of this doc- 
trine of private judgment. 

There is scarcely an error that has ever 
been conceived in the mind of man, a 



1 1 6 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

heresy that has ever been advocated, a doc- 
trine howsoever contradictory or ridiculous, 
malicious or disgusting, that has not been 
defended by its promulgators by some texts 
from Scripture, 

As the late Dr. Jebb, the Protestant Bish- 
op of Limerick, declared in one of his ser- 
mons : " We find melancholy proof that 
Bibles, indiscriminately scattered through the 
land, may be rendered instrumental to the 
most wicked and infernal purposes. The 
volume of Scripture is now in every hand, 
and men without faith, without charity, 
without God in the world are laboring to 
convert that volume into the text-book of 
atheism and anarchy." * 

From the time that the Anabaptists del- 
uged Germany with blood, that Hermann 
announced himself as the Messias and 

* Sermon xL 



What Rule of Faitli was laid down ? 117 

Joanna Southcote issued her one hundred 
and forty-four thousand passports to heaven, 
unto our own days, when the notorious Joe 
Smith gave unto his so-called " saints " the 
permission of multiplying the number of 
their wives, there is no end to the count- 
less offspring of this most prolific principle. 

Theory after theory has been launched 
forth, doctrine after doctrine, sect follows 
sect, all opposing one another, and yet all 
resting, or pretending to rest, upon that 
one corner-stone — the Bible. So that, were 
we to give any credence to their principle, 
we would feel ourselves obliged to believe 
that the Almighty, in giving us the inspired 
writings, merely gave a riddle, and an in- 
solvable one, to the entire human race — 
which, of course, it would be blasphemy to 
admit 

According to the aforesaid principle, and 



1 1 8 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

by some strange contradiction impossible to 
explain, it is perfectly lawful to draw your 
own creed from the Bible — to believe, with 
some, that Christ is God, or with others 
that He was merely a successful moralist 
and regenerator, that there are three divine 
persons in the Blessed Trinity, or with 
others, again, that there is only one ; and 
so on ad infinitum in the way of contra- 
dictions. As Luther himself said with 
regard to his own time, and surely it is 
far more applicable to our age : " There 
are as many creeds as there are heads" 
It is perfectly lawful to draw any conclu- 
sion, howsoever repugnant, from the Scrip- 
tures, provided — and lo ! here is the only 
exception — -provided you do not find therein 
that Christ established but one true Church, 
and that that Church is the Roman Catho- 
lic ! Draw any other conclusion but that 



JV/iat Rule of Faith was laid dawn ? 119 

from the principle of private judgment, and 

you will certainly be in the way of attain- 
ing, as they say, a " blissful immortality!" 

So we cannot but perceive the fallacy of 
such a principle, no matter from what point 
of view we consider it, and the terrible 
havoc it has caused for the past three hun- 
dred years in the Christian camp. How 
grateful and happy Catholics ought to be, 
guided, as they are, by more fixed princi- 
ples and more stable authority, who cling 
to the immovable rock of Christ's Holy 
Church, and rest calm and content amid 
all the storms of passion, prejudice, and ig- 
norance that beset it on every side ! We 
trust to an authority established and pre- 
served by our Redeemer Himself. It is 
from it we receive the Divine Book, and 
it is to that same unfailing authority we 
look for its rightful interpretation. "With- 



120 The Keys of the Kingdom, 

out such a fixed and visible authority/' says 
the amiable and learned Fenelon, " the 
Christian Church would be like to a re- 
public to which wise laws were given, but 
without magistrates to look to their exe- 
cution." 

By no other creed is the Bible so much 
respected and revered as by the Holy 
Church to which it is our greatest happi- 
ness and privilege to belong. From its 
sacred pages our innumerable martyrs and 
saints derived strength and consolation, and 
the Fathers and Doctors of the Church an 
immense fund of learning and instruction. 
They considered it the greatest treasure, 
and mourned over its abuse by those dis- 
obedient children who separated them- 
selves from the communion of the faith- 
ful. Every Sunday and holiday they read 
it for the people, and adorned it by their 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 121 

piety and eloquence. It was their study 
by day ; it was their study by night. 
Many amongst them spent their life, from 
childhood even unto a venerable age, in 
drawing forth from its inspired pages les- 
sons of piety and wisdom, not only for 
themselves, but for countless others com- 
mitted to their care. 

What example more beautiful or more 
forcible can be found than in the life of 
the Venerable Bede — the instructor of Al- 
cuin, who, in his turn, became the pre- 
ceptor of the Emperor Charlemagne — one 
of the best and most learned of men, 
who, from lisping infancy even unto old 
age, devoted himself most ardently to the 
study of Holy Writ, and expired whilst in 
the very act of transcribing the last line 
of the Gospel of St. John ? 

Long before Luther and his followers 



122 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

saw the light of day the Church enjoin- 
ed it as a strict rule on all her clergy 
and religious orders to recite a consider- 
able part of the Bible every day — differ- 
ent selections being allotted to various sea- 
sons and festivals. Hence in the present 
age, as in many others preceding, all ec- 
clesiastics in sacred orders are bound, un- 
der pain of mortal sin, to recite what is 
called the Breviary, or Divine Office, every 
day in the year, unless prevented by sick- 
ness or the urgent spiritual necessities of 
the faithful. 

In the olden times the bishops reve- 
rently kept the Sacred Scriptures in a safe 
place at the left side of the main altar, and 
the Blessed Sacrament on the right side. 
St. Charles Borromeo and many other saints 
always read the Bible on their knees. 

In all our ecclesiastical educational insti- 



What Rule of Faith was laid doivn ? 123 

tutions it is a most special and important 
part of the studies ; and, to give an ex- 
ample of the respect and esteem in which 
the Bible is held, I shall merely mention 
that in the seminary of Montreal, in which 
the writer had the honor of being a stu- 
dent, we were obliged to read a portion of 
the New Testament every day, on bended 
knees and with head uncovered, for a con- 
siderable length of time. There I have 
often seen the venerable bishop in his 
purple robes, the aged superior worn out 
in the service of God, and the young and 
delicate student kneel down on the bare 
floor, modestly take their Testament, and, 
kissing its sacred • pages with the greatest 
reverence, proceed, in the strictest silence, 
to read the holy lessons which it con- 
tained. In fact, the faithful ecclesiastic 
always considers it as his true vade-mecum. 



124 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

The Church, like a prudent and loving 
mother, wished her children to be pre- 
served from faithless copies of the Bible, 
and to be put in possession of such only 
as were duly approved by her and ac- 
companied by appropriate notes and re- 
flections. When she did use restrictive 
measures it was only when she was com- 
pelled to do so by the pressing exigen- 
cies of the times, and when the danger 
had passed she gladly and cheerfully laid 
aside her apparent severity. 

The Jews were always opposed to the 
indiscriminate reading of the Bible, for it 
was not permitted for those under thirty 
years of age to read certain portions of 
the Old Testament — v^ h the beginning of 
Genesis, the Canticle of Canticles, and 
some other special portions of Scripture. 

Nor can it be said that the Church was 



IVtiat Rule of Faith mas laid down ? 125 

osed to the diffusion of the Bible, for 
it is a well-known fact that in Germany 
alone, before Luther inaugurated his seces- 
sion, twenty editions of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures had been published. Shortly after 
the discovery of the art of printing there 
was published a version which bears no 
date (as was the case with all the first 
printed books). Another version appeared 
in 1467. An edition was printed by Fust 
in 1472, and a fifth edition in 1473, just 
ten years before Luther was bom. There 
were four editions of the Catholic version 
published in Nuremberg before Luther's 
version, which was not completed until 
1540, made its appearance. According to 
the late Cardinal Wiseman, a version ap- 
peared in Spain a.d. 1478, and in Italy, 
" the country most peculiarly under the 
sway of papal dominion, the Scriptures 



126 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

were translated into Italian by Malermi, 
at Venice, in 1471, and this version was 
republished seventeen times before the 
conclusion of that century, and twenty- 
three years before that of Luther ap- 
peared." * 

As to translations of the Bible, we have 
the testimony of the Protestant historian 
Hallam that long before the art of print- 
ing was discovered, " in the eighth and 
ninth centuries, when the Vulgate had 
ceased to be generally intelligible, transla- 
tions were freely made into the vernacu- 
lar." f Sir Thomas More declared that 
"the hole Byble was, long before his 
[Wickliffe's] dayes, by vertuous and wel- 
lerned men, translated into the English 

* Lectures on Catholic Doctrine, vol. i. page 56, O' Shea's 
edition. 

f Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 424. 



II licit Rule of Faith was laid 127 

tong, and by good and godly people, with 
rtion and soberness, wel and reverent- 
ly red."* 

:• we may easily pereeive how utterly 
baseless as well as malicious are all the 
slanders uttered against the Catholic 
Church with regard to her treatment of 
the sacred volume, so dearly prized by all 
her children. The Catholic Church is de- 
sirous that the Bible should be in the pos- 
session of every family and should serve 
for their instruction and edification, al- 
though she knows full well that it is not 
absolutely necessary for the majority of 
the people, who can more easily learn the 
chief truths of religion and the principles 
of moral conduct from the oral instruc- 
tions of their pasters. As the great F6ne- 
lon so wisely declared, "Christians ought 

* A Lialogne On book iii. c. 14. 



12S The R the Kingdom. 

to be first taught the spirit of the Scrip- 
rfore they he permitted to react the 

letter of the Scriptures, These should 
onlv he placed in the hands of simple, 
docile, and humble souls, who are willing 
to feast upon them in silence, and not to 
argue, cavil, and dispute about them ; who 
receive them from the Holy Catholic 
Church, and onlv wish to find the true 
and genuine sense as expounded by this 
infallible Church, which Jesus Christ com- 
manded us to hear." 

Even in this age of steam printing- 
presses how many millions are vet unable 
to read : and of those who are able, how 
few comparatively are capable of under- 
standing many parts of the sacred vet 
really mysterious book ! What deep 
knowledge is required of ancient lan- 
guages, the peculiar customs and still 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 1 29 

more peculiar phraseology of olden times! 
How many years should be given to 
study ! — and for this would be needed not 
only ample leisure, but also ample means 
and no small ability. Then consider how 
few of the learned, when left to their 
own lights, agree as to the meaning of 
the most important texts. In the Epistle 
of St. Paul to the Galatians there is one 
very short text, " Now a mediator is not 
of one ; but God is one," * and yet, short 
as it is, actual count has been made of 
two hundred and fifty different interpreta- 
tions with regard to its meaning. 

Hence the necessity for the existence 
of a capable judge ; and in matters of 
such eternal importance there is need of 
an infallible judge, who will not leave us 
in darkness nor lead us into error. In 

* Gal. iii. 20. 



130 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

every society, every state, every kingdom 
or republic there must be a body of laws; 
if a body of laws, then a court ; if a 
court, then a judge ; and, to settle all dif- 
ficulties, a court and judge of last resort. 
Suppose each citizen were permitted to in- 
terpret the laws according to his own 
good pleasure or his own particular judg- 
ment, what would be the result ? An- 
archy, without shadow of doubt. Allow 
the same principle in religion, and what 
would be the consequence ? Rebellion, 
secession, anarchy, infidelity. 

The Bible is the inspired word of God ; 
it is infallible in itself, but it needs an in- 
fallible interpreter, and that infallible inter- 
preter can be no other than the one to 
whom Christ Himself promised that his 
faith should never fail — St. Peter, the 
chief of the apostolic band, the centre of 



What Rale of Faith was laid down ? 131 

unity, the guide, the supporter, the con- 
firmer of his brethren : " I have prayed 
for thee that thy faith fail not ; and thou, 
being once converted, confirm thy breth- 
ren."* " Thou art Peter; and upon this 
rock I will build my Church, and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
And I will give to thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou 
shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound 
also in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in 
heaven." f 

Thus we see that the principle of 
private judgment cannot stand either in 
Church or state, for it is in reality the 
principle of insubordination. " He that 
hath himself for a master," says St. Ber- 
nard, " hath a fool for his scholar " ; or, 

* St. Luke xxii. 32. \ St. Matt. xvi. iS, 19. 



132 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

as a proverb in our day expresses it, "He 
who is his own lawyer has a fool for his 
client." 

St. Peter, the head of the Apostolic Col- 
lege, declared: "We have not, by follow- 
ing artificial fables, made known to you 
the power and presence of our Lord Je- 
sus Christ ; but we were eye-witnesses of 
His greatness. For He received from 
God the Father honor and glory ; this 
voice coming down to Him from the ex- 
cellent glory : This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him. 
And this voice we heard brought from 
heaven, when we were with Him on the 
holy mount. And we have the word of 
prophecy more firm : to which you do well 
to attend, as to a light shining in a dark 
place until the day dawn and the morning 
star rise in your hearts. Understanding 



What Rule of Faith was laid down ? 133 

this first y that no prophecy of the Scrip- 
ture is made by private interpretation! ' * 

It was by forgetting this last injunction 
of St. Peter that so much disunion was 
begotten by the unhappy secession of the 
sixteenth century, and has been ever since 
wofully on the increase. Cut loose from 
the Catholic Church and its divine autho- 
rity, Protestantism has gone on dividing 
and subdividing, until the number is be- 
yond count of warring sects that have 
been sprung upon the religious world to 
add to its confusion and distraction. 

There is a terrible loo-ic in all this ; for 
if, as they say, Luther and Calvin and the 
uxorious Harry the Eighth had a right to 
leave the old Church and to found a new 
one more in accordance with their tastes 
and fancies, so each one of their follow- 

* 2 St. Peter u 10-21, 



134 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ers has the same right, according to that 
principle which is the corner-stone of Pro- 
testantism — the right of private judgment. 
They who are outside the one true 
fold differ not merely in discipline, church 
government, or in what they call " acci- 
dentals/' but even as to the fundamental 
doctrines of Christianity. Hence it is that 
the so-called popular preachers of the day 
seldom or never touch upon dogmatic sub- 
jects. They do not preach " Christ cruci- 
fied," but preach themselves, their whims, 
their fancies, or whatever may be the sen- 
sation of the hour — the latest murder, elec- 
tion, discovery, or invention. Even the 
very mention of the word " dogma " ex- 
cites such horror that if it were used by 
a minister of a fashionable congregation it 
is not unlikely that a committee would be 
appointed to wait upon him and to warn 



II 'hat Rule of Faith zuas laid down ? 135 

him that such a term is entirely unsuited 
to this enlightened nineteenth century, and 
should only be heard in a Catholic church 
— " the Church of the dark ages." 

"He that believeth not shall be con- 
demned " (" damned," Protestant version), 
but these sensational preachers say the very 
opposite : " No matter what you believe or 
disbelieve, we hail you as brethren." " He 
that will not hear the Church," says our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, " let him 
be to thee as a heathen and a publican." 
They say : " Let every man form his own 
creed and be a church unto himself, and 
there is no doubt but he will hear it" as 
it will be none other than the personifica- 
tion of his own whims, fancies, theories, 
or speculations. " Though we, or an angel 
from heaven, preach a Gospel to you be- 
side that which we have preached to you, 



136 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

let him be anathema/' says St. Paul, the 
great Apostle of the Gentiles. * 

They say : "If St. Paul lived in this 
age he would not be so dogmatic, so in- 
tolerant, as such language is now uttered 
only by the Catholic Church — always, you 
know, so very dogmatical." 

There are not a few preachers in our 
time — and their number is unfortunately in- 
creasing — who no longer believe in the di- 
vinity of Christ or in the divine inspira- 
tion of the Bible, and yet they hold their 
ministerial position despite the creeds of 
their respective denominations. The Rev. 
Dr. Heber Xewton, for instance, a presby- 
ter of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
rector of M All Souls' " Church, New York 
(poor, famished souls that ask for the 
" bread " of true doctrine and are handed 

* Galatians i. 8, 



II licit Rule of Faith was laid dow7i ? 137 

" a stone "), calls the belief in the divine 
inspiration of the Bible " bibliolatry." " It 
has bred," he sa)^s, " a superstitious use of 
the Bible which has always made mischief, 
though a mischief never realized so sensi- 
bly as now. It has taught men to turn to 
these holy books and accept unquestion- 
ingly all therein recorded as authoritative 
on our thought and life. It has barred all 
research which even seemed to contradict 
its history or science, and has held Europe 
in mental swaddling-bands, preventing nor- 
mal growth." In another place f the same 
lecturer thus speaks of the Old Testament : 
"The Old Testament historians contradict 
each other in facts and figures, tell the 
same story in different ways, locate the 
same incident at different periods, ascribe 

* The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible, p. 41. 
f Page 22. 



138 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

the same deeds to different men, quote 
statistics which are plainly exaggerated, 
mistake poetic legend for sober prose, re- 
port the marvellous tales of tradition as 
literal history, and give us statements which 
cannot be read as scientific facts without 
denying our latest and most authoritative 
knowledge." 

We doubt if Robert Ingersoll could say 
more against the Bible in a paragraph of 
the same length. Such " ministers of the 
Gospel " should either resign their posi- 
tions or, with the consent of their con- 
gregations, put the Bible on the shelf and 
take their Sunday text from Shakspere, or 
rather from Emerson, the apostle of culture. 

The Catholic Church was the preserver 
and defender of the Bible from the first 
days of Christianity, as Dr. Newton con- 
fesses : " When the writings of Greece and 



What Rule of Fait Ji was laid down ? 139 

Rome had been buried in the ruins of the 
Roman Empire, the literature of Israel was 
preserved by the pious care of the Chris- 
tian Church. The light of Athens went 
out, and the light of Jerusalem alone il- 
lumined the dark ages. The only books 
known to the mass of men through long 
centuries were these writings of the He- 
brews and the early Christians. Thought 
was kept alive by them, imagination was 
fed by them, conscience was educated and 
vitalized through them. For a thousand 
years there was practically but one book 
in Europe — the Bible."* In reading other 
Protestant writers a person would be led 
to imagine that the Bible was a hidden 
book during all those ages, and that so it 
remained until Luther discovered it chained 
to the base of a secret monastic altar. 

* The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible \ pp. 57, 58. 



140 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

The Catholic Church, then, was its only 
guardian in the past, preserving it from 
the desecrating hands of barbarism, igno- 
rance, and heresy: and the time is fast ap- 
proaching when she will be its only de- 
fender and the only upholder of its di- 
vine inspiration in the future. 

This nineteenth century is constantly 
boasting that it is fast burying all the dog- 
mas of the past. The only class of truths it 
relishes are those that have reference 
the mere material world, whatever falls 
under the observation of the senses, adds 
to its profits, diminishes its losses, or 
contributes to its pleasures. All this is 
in direct opposition to the great maxim 
.:s Christ: "What doth it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and 
lose his own soul ? n They who wish to 
hear the voice of God and secure their 



Jl'/iat Rule of Fait Ji was laid down ? 141 

eternal happiness must heed the living 
voice of the Church which He came 
upon earth to establish, and which He 
destined to continue His divine work for 
the salvation of the human race. " We 
are of God. He that knoweth God hear- 
eth us ; he that is not of God heareth 
us not. By this we know the Spirit of 
truth and the spirit of error."* 

* I St. John iv. 6. 



Zbz Cburcb ©ne* 



CITY that is set on a moun- 
tain cannot be hid,"* neither 
can the true Church of God x 
which is none other than "the holy city 
the new Jerusalem coming down from 
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride 
adorned for her husband." f It is placed 
thus conspicuously, " the mountain of the 
house of the Lord," on the " very top of 
mountains," and "exalted above the hills" 
of ignorance, prejudice, and passion, so 
that it cannot fail to be seen by all men 
who will raise their eyes but for a mo- 

* St. Matt. v. 14. f Apoc. xxi. 2. 



The Church One. 143 

ment of sober thought from the thinss 
of earth on which they are constantly 
bent, and take a steadfast look upon that 
most magnificent work of the Almighty's 
creation, " the House of the living God, 
the pillar and ground of truth." * 

From the majestic height whereon it 
was placed by its All-wise Founder its 
light radiates over the entire world, even 
through the darkness of ages, the heavy 
mists of error, and the poisonous air of 
heresy. God hath so clothed His Church 
with beauty and power, and invested it 
with such striking and resplendent marks 
of His divine favor and protection, that 
it cannot fail to impress every sincere 
seeker after truth with the conviction 
that it alone possesses those qualities or 
characteristics which clearly point out the 

* 1 Tim. iii, 15. 



144 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

one true fold of Jesus Christ, the Body 
of which He is the Head, the Kingdom 
of which He is the King, the glorious 
Church, "without spot or wrinkle," of 
which He is the High-Priest for ever. 

The most important of these marks or 
notes is that perfect Unity for which 
Christ prayed so earnestly that it might 
be the distinctive characteristic of that 
Church which He came upon earth to 
establish and for which He shed His 
blood. This was to be the sign, during 
all time, by which His true fold should 
be known. In that most beautiful, ten- 
der, and loving prayer which Jesus offer- 
ed up to His Heavenly Father, on the 
eve of His Passion, in behalf of His 
cherished disciples, He most specially be- 
sought for them this great gift of unity : 
"I do not ask that Thou take them 



The Church One. 145 

away out of the world, but that Thou 
preserve them from evil. They are not 
of the world, as I am not of the world. 
Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. 
As Thou hast sent Me into the world, 
I also have sent them into the world. 
And for them I do sanctify Myself, that 
they also may be sanctified in truth. 
And not for them only do I pray, but for 
those also who through their word shall 
believe in Me. That they all may be 
one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in 
Thee ; that they also may be one in us; 
that the world may btlieve that Thou hast 
sent Me." * 

That Christ's prayers are always heard 
no Christian can doubt. " Jesus, lifting 
up His eyes, said : Father, I give Thee 
thanks that Thou hast heard Me. And 

* St. John xvii. 15-22. 



146 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

I knew that Thou hearest Me always."* 
That "they may be made perfect in 
one" f was and is the most earnest wish 
of our Blessed Lord, and hence unity, 
perfect unity of faith and doctrine, wor- 
ship and government, is the essential cha- 
racteristic of His Holy Church, 

The Almighty wished His Church to 
be like unto Himself — one. Being Infi- 
nite Truth and Infinite Wisdom personi- 
fied, His Church should be an image of 
Himself, and hence should display these 
wondrous attributes. As God He must 
necessarily hate error, heresy,, and false- 
hood of every description. More particu- 
larly is this true if these errors or false- 
hoods regard His own Divine Person, 
His adorable perfections, His institutions 
or dispensations. Being the essence of 

* St. John xi. 41, 42. f Id. xvii. 23. 



The Church One. ' 147 

truth itself, it is absolutely repugnant to 
His very nature that He should be in- 
different as to doctrines concerning His 
attributes, His providence, or with regard 
to the great truths He has vouchsafed to 
reveal to the human race. 

As there is but one God, there can be 
but one system of divine truth, and con- 
sequently but one true religion. God can- 
not approve of two different religions, 
much less of a hundred warring creeds, 
each one contradicting the other on doc- 
trines of the most vital importance ; for 
by so doing He would contradict Him- 
self — a proposition which it would be blas- 
phemous to admit. " Lift up the standard 
to the people, ,, said the Prophet Isaias;* 
and the great Apostle St. Paul did indeed 
lift it up, and wrote upon it characters 

* Is. lxii. 10. 



14S The Keys of the Kingdom. 

that can never fade : " One Lord, one 
faith, one baptism " — the motto of the Ca- 
tholic Church, the corner-stone of her doc- 
trinal edifice. This is the great principle 
on which she was established, the princi- 
ple on which she works and to which she 
always clings, unchanging and unchanged. 
There is perfect unity in the Godhead 
— the adorable unity of the Trinity, and 
a perfect unity in the heavenly hierarchy 
of the angelic choirs, entire subordination 
of one order to another, in the rank as- 
signed by the Almighty to His blessed 
spirits. The most perfect image of this 
heavenly unity is to be found in the Ca- 
tholic Church, where it begets beautv, 
majesty, and strength. This is the only 
Church which rejoices in the possession 
of an interior as well as exterior unity. 
Its interior unity is preserved by the un- 



The Church One. 149 

failing presence and protection of its Di- 
vine Founder : " Behold, I am with you 
all days, even unto the consummation of 
the world"; and by the indwelling light 
and guidance of the Holy Spirit, who is 
"to abide with it for ever.'' 

The exterior unity of the Church is 
maintained throughout all ages by the 
profession by all its members of the satne 
unchangeable faith, by union in worship 
through the great sacrifice of the Mass — 
the unbloody renewal of that of Calvary — 
by the reception of the same grace-giving 
sacraments, and by unity of government 
under one divinely-appointed head, the Vi- 
car of Jesus Christ, the successor of St. 
Peter, the Rock upon which Christ built 
His Church. 

Our Blessed Redeemer always speaks of 
His Church as but one: "On this rock 



150 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

I will build My Church." Let it be well 
borne in mind He does not say churches. 

Whenever He refers to it it is always 
the one Church, the one fold, under one 
shepherd, the one kingdom. "He that 
will not hear the Chureh, let him be to 
thee as the heathen and the publican/' * 
" Other sheep I have, that are not of this 
fold ; them also I must bring, and they 
shall hear my voice, and there shall be 
one fold and one shepherd." f The apos- 
tles always understood it in the same 
sense, and expressed themselves strongly 
and clearly on this point : " We, being 
many, are one body in Christ." * " One 
Lord, one faith, one baptism." § In one 
Spirit are we all baptized into one body, 
whether Jews or Gentiles, bond or free." 

* St. Matt, xviii. 17. f St. John x. 16. % Rom. xii. 5. 
§ Eph. iv. 5. I 1 Cor. xii. 13. 



The Church One. 151 

"Careful to keep the unity of the spirit 
in the bond of peace. One body and one 
Spirit, as you are called in one hope of 
your calling." * ik Christ is the Head of 
the Church ; He is the saviour of His 
body." f According to this same chapter 
of St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, the 
Church is the spouse of Christ, always 
subject and ever faithful to Him, loved and 
cherished by Him in return, and bound to 
Him by a union that can never be dis- 
solved — " a glorious Church without spot 
or wrinkle." This spouse was prefigured 
in the Canticle of Canticles : " One is my 
dove, my perfect one is but one. . . . 
Who is she that cometh forth as the morn- 
ing rising, fair as the moon, bright as the 
sun, terrible as an army set in array ? " % 
The " morning rising " of the Church took 

* Eph. iv. 3, 4. f Eph. v. 23. \ Cant. vi. S, 9. 



152 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

place in the time of the patriarchs ; " fair 
as the moon " did it become under the rule 
of Moses and the prophets ; " bright as 
the sun " from the days of Jesus Christ, 
the Sun of Justice, and " terrible as an 
army set in array " to all its enemies — infi- 
dels, heretics, schismatics. 

Unity of doctrine has always been the 
most resplendent mark of Christ's true 
Church. In every place and in every age 
she has always taught the same divine 
truths that were handed down by Christ 
and His Apostles, and contained in the 
Sacred Scriptures or the apostolic tradi- 
tions. For we know full well that many 
things which Christ did and said were not 
committed to writing by His disciples, but 
delivered by word of mouth to the various 
assemblies which they addressed, and more 
particularly and more fully to those whom 



The Church One. 153 

they ordained to the ministry. " There are 
also many other things which Jesus did, 
which if they were written every one," 
says the Beloved Disciple, St. John, at the 
close of his Gospel, " the world itself, I 
think, would not be able to contain the 
books that should be written." 

How many instructions of the greatest 
importance must not the apostles have re- 
ceived from their Divine Master during 
the forty days that He spent upon earth 
from the time of His Resurrection until 
His Ascension, preparing them for their 
great mission of n teaching all nations " ! 
And most assuredly all these instructions 
were not committed to writing. Even in 
the Old Law some of the most important 
doctrines, such as the Trinity, immortality 
of the soul, and other truths, are not fully 
expressed in the writings of the Old Tes- 



154 The Keys of the Kingdom, 

tament, but were handed down by word 
of mouth by the Jewish priests and doc- 
tors of the law to those persons who were 
to succeed them in office. The late Car- 
dinal Wiseman said that "those who will 
take the requisite pains to trace the doc- 
trines of the Jews in this regard will find 
that from the very beginning, from the de- 
livery of the law to Moses, there was a 
great mass of precepts not written, but 
committed to the keeping of the priest- 
hood, and by them gradually communi- 
cated or diffused among the people, but 
yet hardly alluded to in the writings of 
the Sacred Book." He then refers to the 
works of the learned Molitor, of Frank- 
fort, on The Philosophy of History or 
Tradition — a distinguished author, who, 
"educated in the Jewish religion, had made 
himself perfect master of all the writings 



The Church One, 155 



of the Jews, and who, it is evident from 
the whole line of argument that pervades 
his work, was brought to the Catholic re- 
ligion, and is now one of its defenders, 
simply from finding that among the Jews 
there was a series of traditions which re- 
ceived its development only in Catholic 
Christianity, and a sacred system of mysti- 
cal theology which has been manifestly 
preserved and continued." * " In the first 
page of one of their most esteemed and 
most ancient treatises (Ptrke A both)" says 
the same eminent writer, "it is expressly 
stated that Moses received on Sinai, be- 
sides the written, an oral and traditional 
revelation, which he delivered to the 
priests." 

St. Paul strongly exhorts the Thessalo 

* Lecture III., on " Principal Doctrines of the Catholic 
Church.'' 



156 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

nians : " Hold the traditions which you 
have learned, whether by word or our epis- 
tle."* " Hold the form of sound words 
which thou hast heard from me in faith," 
the same apostle says to St. Timothy, f 
"And the things which thou hast learned 
from me before many witnesses, the same 
commend to faithful men, who shall be fit 
to teach others also." % 

There has been but one set of doctrines 
handed down to us by Christ, contained 
in the Word of God, either written in the 
Scriptures or unwritten and preserved in 
sacred tradition. There has been no 
change from age to age, for the very 
same doctrines that are now taught by 
the Catholic Church in this nineteenth 
century are the same as were taught in 
the sixteenth, the tenth, the fifth, or the 

*2 Epist. ii. 14. f 2 Epist. i. 13. % lb. ii. 2. 



The Church One. 157 

first We hold absolutely to the same 
creeds — the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene, 
the Athanasian, that of Pope Pius IV., 
and that of the Vatican. There is no es- 
sential change of doctrine in all these 
ages, but there is a natural development, 
a fuller setting forth and clearer enuncia- 
tion of truths already believed, which 
places them beyond the possibility of dis- 
pute. Doctrines may be, and have been, 
more clearly defined, but this by no means 
argues a change in the doctrines them- 
selves. The little child of a few months 
who in course of time develops into the 
full-grown man is one and the same per- 
sonality. As St. Vincent of Lerins says : 
" Shall there be no progress in the Church 
of Christ? There shall be progress, and 
even great progress ; for who would be so 
envious of the. good of men, or so cursed 



158 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

of God, as to prevent it ? But it will 
be pi'ogress, and not change. With the 
growth of the ages and centuries there 
must necessarily be a growth of intel- 
ligence, wisdom, and knowledge for each 
man as well as for all the Church. But 
the religion of souls must imitate the 
progress of the human form, which, in de- 
veloping and growing with years, never 
ceases to be the same in the maturity of 
age as in the flower of youth." * 

The divinity of Christ was proclaimed 
a dogma of the Church in the Council of 
Nice, a.d. 325 ; and most assuredly this 
was not a new doctrine, for it was the 
very foundation of Christianity, and yet 
it was thus clearly defined in order to 
preserve the faithful from the snares of 
the Arian heretics, and to unmask these 

* Commonitorium Peregrini. 



The Church One. 159 

wolves in sheep's clothing, who were insi- 
diously endeavoring to undermine the true 
Christian faith. Neither the whole Church 
in council assembled, nor even its Su- 
preme Head, can proclaim a new doctrine 
or pretend to a new revelation in this re- 
spect, but merely decide what is contained 
in the original deposit of faith handed 
down by Christ and His apostles. The 
great principle of the Catholic Church is, 
"Nihil quod non traditum est" — "No- 
thing but what has been handed down " 
by Christ and His disciples can be held 
as of faith in the Catholic Church. 

The belief in the Immaculate Concep- 
tion of the Blessed Virgin Mary is con- 
sequently as old as Christianity itself, al- 
though it was not solemnly declared a 
dogma, which we are bound to believe 
under pain of 9 excommunication, until the 



1 60 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

year 1854. Before proclaiming this truth 
as a dogma Pope Pius IX. consulted the 
bishops of the entire Catholic world as to 
what was always the firm belief of the 
faithful on this point in their respective 
dioceses; and, having received satisfactory 
answers, he, the Supreme Pontiff, to the 
joy of all the faithful, solemnly defined 
that Mary was conceived without the stain 
of original sin, through the preventing 
grace and merits of Jesus Christ. When 
the Almighty pronounced judgment on 
Satan, who had assumed the form of a 
serpent, He said : " I will put enmities be- 
tween thee and the woman, and thy seed 
and her seed ; she shall crush thy head, 
and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." * 
Mary, through the merits of her Divine 
Son, crushed Satan by her sinless concep- 

* Genesis iii. 15. 



The Church One. 161 

tion. This dogma has the closest connec- 
tion with that of the divinity of Christ. 
For surely it would reflect no honor on 
Him were His Mother subject, even for a 
moment, to the power and influence of 
Satan, His avowed enemy ; and subject 
undoubtedly she would have been had she 
been born in the state of original sin. 
That Christ was both willing and able to 
make His Mother an exception with re- 
gard to this hereditary taint the Catholic 
Church has never for an instant doubted ; 
and it is, indeed, hard to believe that any 
one who sincerely loves and adores Jesus 
Christ can have any difficulty in taking 
such a doctrine to his mind and heart. 
There is a very large number of non-Ca- 
tholics in our times that hold that no 
child of Adam is born in original sin, 
hence they certainly cannot object to 



1 62 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Catholic teaching on this point. Nor is 
it a new doctrine even on this great con- 
tinent, for some two hundred years ago 
chapels in honor of the Immaculate Con- 
ception were erected in different parts of 
America. The great apostolic missionary 
as well as discoverer, Father James Mar- 
quette, the Jesuit, in the year 1673 dis- 
covered the Mississippi and called it the 
" River of the Immaculate Conception." 
" I put our voyage," he himself wrote, 
" under the protection of the Blessed Vir- 
gin Immaculate, promising her that if she 
did us the grace to discover the great river 
I \ T ould give it the name of Concep- 
tion."* 

As with the Immaculate Conception, so 
also with regard to the dogma of Papal 

* Dr. Gilmary Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the 
Mississippi. 



The Church One. 163 

Infallibility — the doctrine comes down to 
us from Christ Himself, on whose very 
words it is founded : " Simon, Simon, be- 
hold Satan hath desired to have you that 
he may sift you as wheat. But I have 
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not ; and 
thou being once converted, confirm thy 
brethren." * These solemn words have 
been understood in the same sense in 
every age, as may clearly be seen from 
the writings and testimonies of the Fa- 
thers and Doctors of the Catholic Church. 
The teachings, then, of the Church have 
never undergone anv essential change in 
any age or clime, and the very same doc- 
trines are proposed to the learned as well 
as to the unlearned, to kings as well as to 
beggars, to philosophers and scientists as 
well as to the illiterate and simple-minded, 

* St. Luke xxii. 31, 32. 



164 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

and are to be found in the smallest cate- 
chism as well as in the voluminous works 
of our deepest theologians. 

The great Fathers of the Church in 
every age have always insisted on unity 
of doctrine as an essential mark or char- 
acteristic of the true religion of Jesus 
Christ. A few quotations will suffice. 
St. Augustine says : " All the assemblies, 
or rather divisions, that call themselves 
churches of Christ, but which, in fact, 
have separated themselves from the con- 
gregation of unity, do not belong to the 
true Church. • They might, indeed, belong 
to her if the Holy Ghost could be divided 
against Himself ; but as this is impossible, 
they do not belong to her."* 

Origen — that marvel of learning — thus 
speaks: "As there are many who fancy 

* De Verbo Domini, serm. ii. 



The Church One. 165 

that they think the things of Christ, and 
some of them think differently from those 
that went before, let there be preserved 
the ecclesiastical teaching which, trans- 
mitted by the order of succession from 
the apostles, remains even to the present 
day in the churches ; that alone is to be 
believed as truth which in nothing differs 
from the ecclesiastical and apostolical tra- 
dition." * 

" They again must be reproved, whoever 
they are," says St Ephraem, a Syrian con- 
fessor of the fourth century, u who go astray 
out of the highway, and wander along de- 
vious and treacherous paths ; seeing that 
the way of salvation presents to us marks 
whereby we may perfectly know that this 
is the road which the messengers of peace 
trod ; which the wise, inspired - by the 

* * De % Principiis* 



1 66 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Spirit, hath foreshown, and which the 
prophets and apostles have left us levelled 
and made smooth ; whose milestones truth 
has set up, and whose hostelries Christ has 
fitted up. Come, brethren, let us enter 
upon this road, by which the Father sent 
the Son ; let us keep to the Kings high- 
way, that we may all journey together 
even to the beholding of the Kings 
Son." * 

St. Cyprian, the great Bishop of Car- 
thage, who suffered martyrdom a.d. 258, 
wrote an entire work on the Unity of 
the Church, from which we take this short 
extract : " There is but one God, and one 
Christ, and one faith, and a people joined 
in one solid body with the cement of con- 
cord. This unity cannot suffer a division, 
nor can this one body bear to be disjoint- 

* Serm. xxv. adv. Hseres. 



The Church One, 167 

ed. He cannot have God for his Father 
who has not the Church for his Mother. 
If any one could escape the deluge out of 
Noe's ark, he who is out of the Church 
may also escape. To abandon the Church 
is a crime which blood cannot wash away. 
Such a one may be put to death, but he 
cannot be crowned.'' 

The Protestant Bishop Pearson admits 
the same, and almost in the same words : 
" Christ never appointed two ways to 
heaven ; nor did He build a Church to 
save some, and make another instituticn 
for other men's salvation. As none were 
saved from the deluge but such as were 
in the ark of Noe, so none shall ever es- 
cape the eternal wrath of God which be- 
long not to the Church of God."* This, 
certainly, was a strong condemnation of 

* Exposition of the Creed, p. 349. 



1 68 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

his own position and of that of the Church 
by law established. 

It is reported that Bishop Jewel, of the 
same establishment, made the very strange 
and ridiculous charge against the Catholic 
Church that it was wanting in unity be- 
cause some friars dressed in black, others in 
brown ; some in white, others again in blue ; 
some lived on meat, others on fish and 
vegetables ! Surely this does not consti- 
tute division on points of doctrine. It is 
also objected by ignorant persons that the 
Church is divided into the different camps 
of Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Au- 
gustinians, and Benedictines ; but, as every 
educated man knows, or ought to know, 
these orders do not hold different forms 
of faith, but simply have different rules of 
community life. Every Catholic, whether 
a member of an order or not, Jesuit or 



The Church One. 169 

Dominican, bishop or priest, pope or lay- 
man, must subscribe to the same unchange- 
able rule of faith ; and no matter what his 
rank, learning, talents, or position, if he 
deny but one dogma of the Catholic re- 
ligion he is ipso facto cut off from the 
communion of the faithful. Considering 
the frailty of human nature and the per- 
versity of the human will, " there must be 
also heresies/' says St. Paul, * " that they 
also who are reproved may be made mani- 
fest among you.'' Heresies, like scandals, 
shall arise, but woe to them through whom 
they come ! 

T. W. Allies, the distinguished English 
author, gave the following beautiful testi- 
mony to the unity of doctrine of the 
Catholic Church, some years before he 
resigned his position in the Established 

* i Cor. xi. 19. 



1 70 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Church and joined our communion : " This 
body of doctrine is uniform, coherent, sys- 
tematic, forming a whole which compre- 
hends all the relations of man to God 
from the formation of the first man to 
the general judgment of the world. These 
bishops, and the priests under them, are 
not in the habit of disputing what this 
body of doctrine is ; for, as to all that 
concerns the Christian life, it has long ago 
been clearly defined and established. In 
the long course of eighteen hundred years 
disputes about it have indeed arisen ; they 
have then been terminated by common 
consent ; individuals who took a different 
view about them from the whole body 
have been obliged to leave it, and the 
truth has only come out the more sharply 
defined from these contests. Moreover, 
as this doctrine claims to be revealed^ and 



The Church One. 171 

as all revelation must be partial, as a light 
shining amid darkness, penetrating it, in- 
deed, on all sides, but leaving indefinite 
spaces beyond unillumined, there are a 
multitude of questions more or less touch- 
ing on this doctrine, yet not comprehend- 
ed in it or decided by it. Only enough 
is, by the consent of all members of this 
hierarchy, decided so as to leave the Chris- 
tian in no doubt as to any point concern- 
ing his salvation or as to any practical 
means of obtaining it. There is no split 
in this doctrine, dividing its professors into 
different camps ; no internal opposition of 
principles reproduced in external divisions. 
It is one logical whole. If fresh doubts 
as to any point not yet decided be raised 
by the ever-active intellect of man, then 
the hierarchy, either collectively or by tacit 
adherence to .the voice of its chief, declares 



1 72 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

and decides the point mooted. This body 
of doctrine, thus possessed and taught by 
this hierarchy, is termed the Faith, and it 
is necessary for every simple member of 
the communion to hold and believe it. 
It is clear that no such body of doctrine 
could exist without a power co-existing at 
all times to declare what does or does not 
belong to it ; for were it simply written in 
a book, interminable disputes would arise 
as to the meaning of the book — just as 
the English law, the work of ages, exists 
in a great number of volumes, but re- 
quires no less for its practical daily work- 
ing the decision of a supreme judicial 
authority. The sovereign declares in his 
courts of justice what is the law; the 
Church declares in her court what is the 
Faith. This, in civil matters, is govern- 
ment ; in spiritual it is infallibility ; with- 



The Church One. 173 

3Ut it, in the state, there would be no 
me authority, in the Church no one be- 
lief ; this would be dissolved in anarchy, 
and that distracted by heresy." * 

No other Church possesses this unity of 
doctrine. All heresies must seek some 
other abiding-place. Ninety distinct here- 
sies sprang up in the first four hundred 
years of the Church's history, ninety from 
then until Luther's advent, two hundred 
and seventy in the sixteenth century, and 
how many have since arisen it is almost 
impossible to enumerate. It is estimated 
that there are at the present time one 
hundred and fifty different sects in Eng- 
land ; and as to the number of denomi- 
nations in this country, a new census 
would be necessary every year to arrive 
at a close estimate. 

* A Life's Decision , pp. 255-257. 



i;4 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

None of the Protestant sects of the 

present day hold to the doctrines of the 
first " Reformers. w Even the first Protest- 
ants widely disagreed among themselves, 
even with regard to important points of 
doctrine. Zwingle separated from Luther 
and became the leader of the Sacramenta- 
rians. Muncer and Storck, carrying out 
logical deductions from Luther's princip 
advocated the abrogation of all law and 
authority, and were in favor of absolute 
communism. "At the present day," says 
Father Xampon, " even in Calvin's own 
city, his authority is completely annihi- 
lated, and the prevailing theology is thor- 
oughly anti-Calvinistic. As a man. Calvin 
has been exposed to public contempt by 
Galline ; as a politician, he has seen his 
work utterly destroyed bv Fazv ; as a tl 
iogian, he has been convicted of absurdity 



The Church One. 175 

and immorality by Chenevriere." Since 
Nampon wrote the above the ministers of 
Geneva have thrown off all disguise and are 
now avowed rationalists. So stands what 
has been called the " Protestant Rome." 
How many educated Protestants could now 
be found who would, without any mental 
reservation, subscribe to the Articles of 
Smalcald, the Synod of Dort, the Augs- 
burg Confession, the Westminster Confes- 
sion, or the Thirty-nine Articles ? 

The chief doctrine of Luther, and, in 
fact, the very corner-stone of doctrinal 
Protestantism at the opening of the so- 
called " Reformation," was justification by 
faith alone; and yet it was rejected by 
the Arminians, Socinians, the Wesleyan 
Methodists, and, so far as I have been 
able to learn, is nowhere preached in our 
day. " Hold fast to this doctrine of jus- 



1 76 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

tification by faith alone/' says Luther. 
"If we lose it we shall no longer be in 
a condition to resist the devil and the 
pope, much less to vanquish them." Pro- 
testants, as a body, have come over to 
the Pope's side on this question, and be- 
lieve in the necessity of faith showing it- 
self in good works, or, in other words, of 
faith working through charity. 

"The Church," says Father Nampon, 
S.J., "to whijph at its first rise the Refor- 
mation had attributed the right of judg- 
ing the pope, bishops, and councils, soon 
finds itself deprived of its priesthood, 
which is declared to be common to all 
Christians ; deprived of its power, which 
it abdicates into the hands of the state ; 
deprived of its sacraments, which the ra- 
tionalists take from it one after another, 
to such a point that at the present day, 



The Church One. 177 

according" to Newman, one-half the people 
of England are nut baptized ; deprived of 
its worship, which, being at first reduced 
to an optional attendance at a preaching, 
is now almost entirely done away with by 
the progress of individualism ; in fine, it 
becomes in its own eyes something so un- 
certain and so vague that Protestantism 
has never hitherto been able to find a de- 
finition of the Church on which it could 
rest. It must now despair of ever finding 
one. The grand palladium of the Reform- 
ers, the Scripture itself — that Scripture so 
ill-treated in the translations of Luther 
and Beza — is from the very first an object 
of contempt to the Anabaptist enthusiasts 
and the mystics. Theobald Thamer pre- 
fers to it conscience, which is God Him- 
self. In Hobarg's eyes it is an old % dead, 
and dully thing, which can only make 



1 78 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Pharisees. At a later period the Armini- 
ans deny the inspiration of the historical 
books. Then comes the rationalistic exe- 
gesis, which leaves nothing in the Bible 
untouched. Authenticity, integrity, truth, 
inspiration — all is made matter of ques- 
tion, all is denied."* 

Protestant doctrines, according to Schlei- 
ermacher, last, on an average, only fif- 
teen years; so that, according to this es- 
timate, it would require an abler and more 
industrious writer than the immortal Bos- 
suet to keep count of the never-ending 
"variations" from his time to this, the 
latter part of the nineteenth century. If 
he had been able to fill two large volumes 
in relating the Variations of the Protest- 
ant Churches up to his time, how many 
volumes would now be required we leave 

* Catholic Doctrine of tlie Council of Trent, pp. xix., XX. 



The Church One. 1 79 

to the conjecture of others to determine. 
" The corner-stone of Protestantism/' says 
a non-Catholic writer in the Westminster 
Review for July, 1872, " is an admirable 
one for a temple of free thought and no- 
thing else." This is lamentably true, and 
the worst effect produced by its endless 
dissensions is that there is a growing dis- 
regard for all dogmatic truth. Heresy 
does not now produce that abhorrence 
which it should in every Christian heart, 
that should be desirous of preserving in- 
tact the seamless robe of Jesus Christ. 
Let the distinction be well understood 
that we should hate heresy in every shape 
and form, but we should not hate heretics, 
whose sad lot we should rather commise- 
rate, and strive, by word, by example, by 
prayer and the exercise of Christian cha- 
rity, to lead • them to their Father's home 



180 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

through the rich pastures of the one true 
fold of Jesus Christ. 

We by no means rejoice, but rather 
grieve, over the terrible falling-away from 
fundamental Christian truths that has taken 
place in the ranks of those who are at 
least nominally Protestant. A very large 
number of them believe no longer in the 
Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the doc- 
trine of original sin, the existence of hell, 
or even the inspiration of the Scriptures. 
In all this they are but carrying out, with 
remorseless logic, the principles of the self- 
styled " Reformers." " I consider myself 
the most rational of Protestants/' wrote 
the infidel Bayle to Polignac, " because, 
led by Protestant principles, I protest 
equally against all systems and all sects." 
" Prove to me," said Jean Jacques Rous- 
seau, "that I am bound to obey authority 



The C hurch One. 181 

in religion, and to-morrow I will become 
a Catholic." 

The Germans are considered deep phi- 
losophers and good logicians, and hence 
Protestantism has led them to rationalism 
pure and simple. Only a very small per- 
centage of the non-Catholic population of 
the great German nation, more particular- 
ly that of Berlin and the other chief cities, 
attend religious services of any kind what- 
soever. As to the condition of Protest- 
antism, we here give the testimony of 
Scherer, a distinguished Protestant: "This 
church, deprived alike of its corporate and 
its dogmatic character, of its form and of 
its doctrine, deprived of all that consti- 
tuted it a Christian church and distin- 
guished it as a particular church, has, in 
truth, ceased to exist in the ranks of re- 
ligious communities. Its name continues, 



1 82 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

but it represents only a corpse, a phantom, 
or, if you will, a memory or a hope. . . . 
Our faculties of theology teach orthodoxy 
and rationalism without distinction. A 
given professor can, without control and 
without being unfaithful to his engage- 
ments, overthrow revealed religion by criti- 
cism, and natural religion by speculation. 
Pastors enjoy the same latitude. They are 
opposed one to another, and so likewise 
are the churches, and even consistories. 
We have no longer any ecclesiastical insti- 
tutions, properly so called, nor unity nor 
religious government. . . . For want of 
a dogmatic authority unbelief has made 
its way into three-fourths of our pulpits."* 
That the Established Church of England 
is not in much better condition we may 
easily infer from the description given by 

* De T Etat actuel de VtLglise reforme'e en France. 



The Church One. 1S3 



one who knows it well — Cardinal John 
Henry Newman : "We see in the English 
church, I will not merely say no descent 
from the first ages, and no relationship to 
the Church in other lands, but we see no 
body politic of any kind ; we sec nothing 
more or less than an Establishment, a de- 
partment of government, or a function or 
operation of the state, without a sub- 
stance — a mere collection of officials, de- 
pending on and living in the supreme civil 
power. Its unity and personality are gone, 
and with them its power of exciting feel- 
ings of any kind. . . . Bishop is not like 
bishop more than king is like king or 
ministry like ministry; its Prayer-Book is 
an Act of Parliament of two centuries 
ago. and its cathedrals and its chapter- 
houses are the spoils of Catholicism. I 
have said all 'this, not in declamation, but 



184 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

to bring out clearly why I cannot feel in- 
terest of any kind in the national church, 
nor put any trust in it at all from its past 
history, as if it were, in however narrow a 
sense, a guardian of orthodoxy. It is as 
little bound by what it said or did former- 
ly as this morning's newspaper by its for- 
mer numbers, except as it is bound by 
the law ; and while it is upheld by the 
law it will not be weakened by the sub- 
traction of individuals nor fortified by 
their continuance. Its life is an Act of 
Parliament. It will not be able to resist 
the Arian, Sabellian, or Unitarian heresies, 
because Bull or Waterland resisted them 
a century or two before ; nor, on the other 
hand, would it be unable to resist them, 
though its more orthodox theologians 
were presently, to leave it. It will be able 
to resist them while the state gives the 



The Church One. 185 

word ; it would be unable when the state 
forbids it. Elizabeth boasted that she 
1 tuned her pulpits ' ; Charles forbade dis- 
cussions on predestination, George on the 
Holy Trinity ; Victoria allows differences 
on Holy Baptism."* 

How earnestly did not the blessed Apos- 
tles warn Christians against all heresies 
and schisms ! " Take heed, brethren," 
says St. Paul to the Hebrews, f " lest 
there be in any of you an evil heart 
of unbelief, to depart from the living 
God." "Mark them," he says to the 
Romans, % " who cause dissensions and 
offences contrary to the doctrine which 
you have learned, and avoid them." 
St. Peter, chief of the apostles, also 
warns the faithful against teachers of error 

* Anglican Difficulties, p. 4. \ Heb. iii. 12. 

\ Rom. xvi. 17. 



1 86 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

and heresy: "There shall be lying teachers 
among you, who shall bring in sects of 
perdition " * (or damnable heresies, accord- 
ing to the Protestant version). " These 
are fountains without water, and clouds 
tossed with whirlwinds, to whom the mist 
of darkness is reserved. ,, f St. Paul clearly 
prophesies the advent of heretics : " Now 
the Spirit manifestly saith that in the last 
times some shall depart from the faith, 
giving heed to spirits of error and doc- 
trines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, 
and having their conscience seared/' % 

We thus see from different parts of the 
Sacred Scripture that heresy is a great sin 
and a great evil, which should be avoided 
by every man desirous of his salvation. 
All schisms and dissensions are also strong- 
ly condemned by the apostles. The mis- 

* 2 Ep. ii. i. f Id. 17. % 1 Tim. iv. I, 2. 



The Church One. 187 

fortune of this age, or rather, to call 
things by their proper names, the crime 
of the age, is to think lightly of, or to 
disregard totally, all supernatural truth, 
and to reject even the few Christian dog- 
mas that were retained by the " Reform- 
ers/' And yet but lately the entire Pro- 
testant world celebrated with great demon- 
strations of joy the fourth centenary of 
Luther's birth. How few of those who 
rejoiced, or pretended to rejoice, would be 
able to give a satisfactory reason for so do- 
ing ! For many can be found who, though 
nominally Protestant, yet do not hold the 
doctrines taught by Martin Luther. If he 
were to return to earth he would find it 
extremely difficult, if not altogether im- 
possible, to recognize his spiritual off- 
spring. A still larger number are igno- 
rant as to the real character of Luther 



1 88 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

and his associates, the dubious methods 
they used to carry their ends, their quar- 
rels and dissensions, the contradictions to 
be found in their writings, and the sad 
deterioration in morals acknowledged even 
by themselves to have been produced by 
their rejection of the authority of the Ca- 
tholic Church. 

Having carefully and calmly read the 
writings of many Protestant as w T ell as Ca- 
tholic authors on this subject, I here set 
down naught in malice, but endeavor to 
the best of my ability to serve the inte- 
rests of truth, which should be dear to 
every man. 

Martin Luther was a man of great na- 
tural ability and not devoid of some good 
qualities. He received an excellent edu- 
cation, possessed energy, of character, was 
gifted with eloquence and inclined to 



The Church One. 189 

piety. But his piety, which began by 
being over-scrupulous, ended in wayward- 
ness, as piety of that peculiar kind gene- 
rally does. Sometimes he was careless as 
to the fulfilment of his obligations, more 
particularly that of the daily recitation of 
the Breviary, or Divine Office (chiefly 
composed of appropriate selections from 
the Sacred Scriptures) ; and then he would 
go to the other extreme and punish him- 
self by excessive austerities and corporal 
scourging in order to atone for his delin- 
quencies. For this he was often censured 
by his superiors ; yet he heeded not their 
counsel, and was therefore wanting in that 
strict obedience demanded by rule of every 
monk. With this exception I see no rea- 
son to doubt that Dr. Martin Luther was 
for a few years an earnest, studious, and 
mortified priest and monk, and that he felt 



190 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

sincerely grieved at the worldly, disedify- 
ing conduct of many of the clergy of his 
time, more particularly of those in exalt- 
ed rank. There certainly was sufficient 
ground for complaint and much need of 
reform not only in the sixteenth century, 
but also in the preceding ages. Nor was 
Luther the first to perceive it ; for far 
greater and holier men, like St. Gregory 
VII., St. Peter Damian, St. Bernard, Car- 
dinal Julian, Cardinal Cusanus, and other 
eminent churchmen, wrote and worked and 
prayed for a reformation of morals and 
the re-establishment of proper discipline 
amongst the members of the clergy. * 
The ground had been long preparing for 
the sowing of the seed of revolt. The 
people had not been well instructed in 

* It is well to note, however, that the disorders among 
the clergy grew out of lay usurpation of pontifical rights. 



The Church One. 191 

their faith ; kings and princes were rest- 
less under the yoke of papal supervision, 
and only too anxious for a pretext to rob 
the monasteries and to seize on Church 
property. Many others were desirous of 
being freed from all restraint in the in- 
dulgence of their passions, and hence 
when the great conflagration burst forth 
it was not entirely caused by Luther's ac- 
tion. He struck the spark, it is true, but 
then he found the material, the shavings 
and kindling, all ready for the fire. 

The occasion or first apparent motive 
that Luther had for beginning his revolt 
was, at bottom, only jealousy, because an- 
other religious order — namely, the Do- 
minican — received the appointment to 
preach the Papal Indulgence. As many 
of our Protestant friends have the strang- 
est misconceptions as to this point of Ca- 



192 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

tholic doctrine, a few words on " indul- 
gences " will not here be out of place. 

Protestants, and, generally speaking, all 
non-Catholics, owing to bitter prejudices 
in which they have been brought up, and 
their consequent ignorance of Catholic 
teaching, are under an impression that an 
indulgence means a permission to commit 
sin. Such undoubtedly was the belief of 
the great mass of Protestants in days gone 
by, and, strange to say, there is still a 
large number of persons, especially among 
the uneducated living in retired country 
districts, who yet hold this ridiculous no- 
tion. It is scarcely necessary to say, it is 
to be hoped, that no Catholic believes 
such an abominable doctrine. Certainly 
neither the Catholic Church nor its head 
upon earth, the Pope, can do what God 
Himself cannot do — namely, give permis- 



The Church One. 193 

sion to any one to commit sin. Let any 
one of my Protestant readers stop the first 
Catholic child he meets and ask him the 
meaning of an indulgence, or examine any 
of our catechisms, and he will receive this 
answer: "An indulgence is a release from 
the temporal punishment due to sin, after 
its gtcilt has been remitted in the tribunal 
of penance/' 

This certainly is very plain. Protestants, 
if I mistake not, believe that when their 
sins are forgiven the punishment due to 
those sins is likewise remitted. Not so 
Catholics. We believe that a true, heart- 
felt sorrow as well as a firm purpose of 
amendment are absolutely necessary in 
order to obtain pardon ; and when our 
sins are forgiven we believe also that the 
eternal punishment due to them is remit- 
ted likewise, "but -that some temporal pun- 



194 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ishment remains to be undergone either 
in this life or in the next. David cer- 
tainly knew that his sins were forgiven, 
since he was assured of the fact by God's 
prophet ; and yet that same prophet, Na- 
than, declared to him that he would have 
to suffer a grievous temporal punishment 
in consequence : " David said to Nathan : 
I have sinned against the Lord. And Na- 
than said to David : The Lord also hath 
taken away thy sin ; thou shalt not die. 
Nevertheless, because thou hast given oc- 
casion to the enemies of the Lord to blas- 
pheme, for this thing the child that is 
born to thee shall surely die." * 

In the primitive ages of the Church 
those persons who were guilty of certain 
grievous and scandalous sins were obliged 
to undergo public penance for weeks, 

*2 Kings xii. 13, 14. 



The Church One. 195 

months, and sometimes even years. It 
now and then happened, through the medi- 
ation or intercession of some holy con- 
fessors suffering in chains for the faith, 
that these penitents obtained a release 
from this canonical penance. This release 
was of the nature of an indulgence; and, 
therefore, when the Church announces, 
for instance, an indulgence of forty days 
or two hundred days for some work of 
devotion performed with proper disposi- 
tions, this means a release from temporal 
punishment equivalent to the canonical 
penance formerly inflicted for that definite 
portion of time. A plenary indulgence, if 
the dispositions of the penitent be per- 
fect, releases from all the temporal punish- 
ment due to the sins already forgiven. 
That the Church has this power of loosen- 
ing as well as binding is evident from the 



196 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

words of Christ, her Founder, to St. Peter, 
and in him to his successors : " I will give 
to thee the keys of the kingdom of hea- 
ven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon 
earth, it shall be bound also in heaven ; 
and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon 
earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." * 
The Holy Catholic Church has power, 
therefore, to impose penalties and to with- 
draw them when she deems proper. 

St. Paul exercised this power when he 
excommunicated the incestuous Corinthi- 
an : M I indeed absent in body, but pre- 
sent in spirit, have already judged, as 
though I were present, him that hath so 
done, in the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, you being gathered together and 
my spirit, with the power of our Lord Je- 
sus, to deliver such a one to Satan for 

*St. Matt. xvi. 19. 



The Church One. 197 

the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit 
may be saved in the day of our Lord Je- 
sus Christ."'" There is nothing more ter- 
rible in this life than this form of excom- 
munication used by St. Paul ; and yet out 
of the goodness of his apostolic heart, on 
the repentance of this sinner and for the 
sake of the faithful Corinthians, he grant- 
ed him an indulgence or a release from 
this terrible temporal punishment : u For 
your sakes have I done it in the person 
of Christ." f 

If St. Paul had this power, then, with- 
out doubt, St. Peter, the chief of the 
apostles, possessed it ; and if St. Peter 
had it. so also his successors in office are 
endowed with the same power. They do 
no more and no less than St. Paul did on 
the occasions referred to in Sacred Writ 

* 1 Cor. v. 3-6. \ 2 Cor. ii, 10. 



198 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

But some one may ask, Were there not 
abuses connected with the proclamation 
of indulgences in the time of Luther? 
There may have been some exaggeration 
in the mode of preaching them by some 
of the friars, but the Church was not to 
blame, nor the doctrine itself of indul- 
gences. Every good thing is liable to 
abuse. Liberty, free-will, the Bible are 
all good things in themselves, yet how 
fearfully are they not abused ! The Catho- 
lic Church teaches that no indulgence can 
be gained by any one in the state of 
mortal sin or out of the friendship of 
God. Hence true sorrow for past sins, a 
firm purpose of change of life, a clear 
confession and restitution or reparation of 
injuries done, are all necessary for forgive- 
ness, and before any indulgence can pos- 
sibly be gained. Even Tetzel, the Do- 



The Church One. 199 

minican preacher of the Papal Indul- 
gence, whom Luther attacked so bitter- 
ly, laid down these same conditions in his 
instruction to parish priests, October 31, 
151 7: "Whosoever, having confessed and 
being penitent (confessus et contritus), 
shall bring alms (eleetnosynam), shall ob- 
tain remission of temporal and canonical 
punishment. ,, 

The granting of indulgences, especially 
in the form of a Jubilee, has always been 
productive of immense good in the im- 
provement of morals, the awakening of 
piety, the increase of devotion, and the 
multiplication of works of charity. Pope 
Clement VI., in his bull announcing the 
Jubilee of 1350, declared: "We grant 
these indulgences to the end that the 
piety of the Roman people and of all the 
faithful may be increased, that their faith 



200 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

may shine with greater lustre, their hope 
become more firm, their charity more ac- 
tive and fervent." 

Father Nampon, in his excellent work 
on the Catholic Doctrine of the Council 
of Trent, says : " The fruit of an indul- 
gence is to remove from us the pains of 
this life, or at least to take from them 
the aggravating character of punishments, 
and to accelerate our entrance into glory 
by assisting us to discharge all our debts. 
Assuredly nothing can be more advantage- 
ous to us. While by this motive the 
faithful are encouraged to profit by indul- 
gences, the just detained in purgatory re- 
ceive the benefit of those which we gain 
for them. These suffering souls are no 
longer under the jurisdiction of the 
Church militant ; she cannot, therefore, de- 
liver them directly from their debt, but 



The Church One, 201 

she may, by offering to God the equiva- 
lent of what they owe, ask and more 
readily obtain their deliverance. This is 
what is called applying an indulgence to 
the dead by way of suffrage ; and it is 
one of the sweetest and most consoling 
consequences of the communion of saints. 
1 The souls of the faithful departed are 
not separated from the Church/ says St. 
Augustine ; * ' otherwise there would not 
be a commemoration made of them at 
the altar of God in the communication of 
the Body of Christ/ If, by his prayers, 
his alms, his satisfactory works, offered for 
the benefit of the dead, a simple believer 
can obtain from God the alleviation of 
their sufferings, far stronger reason have 
we to believe that this power of interces- 
sion belongs to the visible head of the 

* De Civit, Dei, 1. xx. c. 9. 



202 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Church, who is established by Jesus Christ 
as the minister of reconciliation, the dis- 
penser of the divine mysteries, the de- 
pository of the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven."* 

"What a magnificent picture," says De 
Maistre, "is that of this immense com- 
monwealth of spirits with its three orders 
ever in relation with one another ! The 
world which is engaged in the combat 
holds out one hand to the world of suf- 
ferers, and seizes with the other that of 
the world of those in trhimph. Thanksgiv- 
ing, prayer, satisfactions, aid, inspirations, 
faith, hope, love circulate from one to the 
other as beneficent streams. Nothing is 
isolated, and the souls, like the plates of 
a galvanic battery, enjoy both their own 
strength and that of all the others." 

* Page 632. 



The Church One. 203 

It may be asked, Was there not ques- 
tion of money in connection with indul- 
gences ? Yes, there was, but the money 
was given, or should only have been given 
or asked, in the form of alms for a worthy 
object. It was by means of these alms 
that asylums, hospitals, and churches were 
built, and that armies were assisted in 
their defence of Christendom against the 
Turks. In Luther's time these offerings 
were given for the completion of St. 
Peter's Church at Rome, " the cathedral 
of all Christendom," as Wendell Phillips 
calls it. Even in our day, when a Jubilee 
is proclaimed there are boxes placed in 
every church for the reception of the of- 
ferings of the faithful, and these alms are 
distributed to the poor, devoted to the 
support of orphans or to the propagation 
of the faith in pagan countries. 



204 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

To set a price on anything sacred, 
whether sacraments or indulgences, would 
be the sacrilegious crime of simony, so 
abhorred by the Church. So, then, on 
the ground of indulgences, there was no 
reason for seceding from the Catholic 
Church, since it condemned the abuses 
to which Luther referred. He himself in 
the beginning did not attack the doctrine 
of indulgences, for when he nailed his 
ninety-five propositions to the door of the 
church of Wittenberg, October 31, 15 17, 
he declared in his thirty-first proposition : 
" Whosoever speaks against the truths of 
papal indulgences, let him be anathema." * 
In defending his theses he professed entire 
obedience to the pope, Leo X., saying in 
his letter : " Most Holy Father, I cast my- 
self at thy feet, with all that I have and 

* Vide Alzog's History, vol. iii. p. 13. 



The Church One. 205 

am. Give life or take it ; call, recall, ap- 
prove, reprove ; your voice is that of 
Christ, who presides and speaks in you." 
As events soon showed, he was not sin- 
cere in these sentiments ; for as soon as 
the pope, who treated Luther with great 
forbearance, condemned his false proposi- 
tions, he received in return only vile 
abuse. 

Many writers hold that the cause of 
the " Reformation " may be traced to the 
great corruption existing in the Church at 
that time ; but the Protestant historian 
Guizot, in his History of European Civi- 
lization, declares "it is not true that in 
the sixteenth century abuses, properly so 
called, were more numerous, more crying, 
than they had been at other times." 

Even if such corruption, as alleged, really 
did exist, this was no reason for abandon- 



206 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ing the Church in order to reform it. It 
would be just as sensible for a person 
who wished to clean or renovate the in- 
terior of his house to put himself on the 
ontside and then fling dirt at it. Great 
saints clamored for reform, and in so 
doing they knew full well that the Church 
itself was fully capable of carrying it out. 
The defect was not in the teachings of 
the Church, otherwise the promises of 
Christ would have failed ; but the great 
evil of the times was a manifest lack of 
energy in enforcing its disciplinary laws. 

The Church set to work in deep ear- 
nestness, in this very same sixteenth cen- 
tury, to bring about a general reformation 
bv its celebrated Council of Trent, and it 
accomplished thereby the grand object in 
view. " Xo general council," says the 
Protestant historian Hallam, "ever con- 



The Church One. 207 

tained so many persons of eminent learning 
as that of Trent, nor is there any ground 
for believing that any other ever investi- 
gated questions before it with so much 
patience, acuteness, and desire of truth." 
In the beginning of his religious revolt, 
before pride and passion had taken too 
strong a hold upon him, Luther himself 
acknowledged, in his letter to Pope Leo 
X., that he had no ground for separating 
from the Church. He thus writes : "That 
the Roman Church is more honored by 
God than all others is not to be doubted. 
St. Peter and St. Paul, forty-six popes, 
some hundreds of thousands of martyrs 
have laid down their lives in its commu- 
nion, having overcome hell and the world ; 
so that the eyes of God rest on the Roman 
Church with special favor. Though now- 
adays everything is in a wretched state, 



2 0$ The Keys of the Kijigdom. 

ground for separating from the 

things are going the more should we 
hold close to her, for it is not by sepa- 
rating from the Church that we can n 

T \Ve must not separate from 
God on a of any work of the 

.1. nor cease to have fellowship with 
the children of God who are still abiding 
in the pale of Rome, on account of the 
multitude of the ungodly. There is no 
sin, no amount of evil, which I be 

rity 
or break the bond of unity of the body. 
For love can do all things, and not! 
is difficult tc the united." This remark- 
able declar; 

bigoted Merle :i"Aub:gnc. is surely a ter- 
rible condemnation of his )wn beha 

er-Church. 



The Church One. 209 

The Protestant biographer Roscoe says 
that Luther was treated with the greatest 

forbearance — so much so, indeed, that "the 
cause of the Church was rather injured by 
the condescension and moderation which 
he experienced."* The same writer says 

that " the personal character of the pon- 
tiff (Leo X.) stood high throughout all 
Europe. He was surrounded at home and 
represented abroad by men of the greatest 
eminence. The sovereigns of Christen- 
dom vied with one another in manifesting 
their obedience to the Holy See : even 
Luther himself had written to the pope in 
the most respectful terms, transmitting to 
him, under the title of Resolutiones, a full 
explanation of his propositions, submit- 
ting not only his writings but his life to 
his disposal, and declaring that he would 

* Life of Leo X. t vol. ii. p. 107. 



210 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

regard whatever proceeded from him as 
declared by God Himself." * 

Luther, having cast off the authority of 
the pope, laid claim to the like authority 
over his own followers. He could not 
bear with the slightest disagreement from 
others with regard to his own opinions, 
and he gave way to the greatest violence 
against his opponents, supposed to be " Re- 
formers " like himself. " Although/' says 
Roscoe, " he was ready on all occasions 
to make use of arguments from Scripture 
for the defence of his tenets, yet when 
these proved insufficient he seldom hesi- 
tated to resort to more violent measures. 
This was fully exemplified in his conduct 
towards his friend Carlostadt, who, not 
being able to distinguish between the 
Romish doctrine of transubstantiation and 

* Life of Leo X., vol. ii. p. 95. 



The Church One. 2 1 1 

that of the real presence of Christ in the 
sacrament, had, like Zuinglius, adopted the 
idea that the bread and the wine were 
only the symbols and not the actual sub- 
stance of the body and blood of Christ. 
Luther, however, maintained his opinion 
with the utmost obstinacy. The dispute 
became the subject of several violent ^pub- 
lications, until Luther, who was now sup- 
ported by the secular power, obtained the 
banishment of Carlostadt, who was at 
length reduced to the necessity of earning 
his bread by his daily labor. The unac- 
commodating adherence of Luther to this* 
opinion placed also an effectual bar to the 
union of the Helvetic and German Re- 
formers ; and to such an uncharitable ex- 
treme did he carry his resentment against 
those who denied the Real Presence that 
he refused to admit the Swiss and the 



212 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

German cities and states which had adopt- 
ed the sentiments of Zuinglius and Bucer 
into the confederacy for the defence of 
the Protestant Church, choosing rather to 
risk the total destruction of his cause than 
to avail himself of the assistance of those 
who did not concur with him in every 
particular article of belief. Nor did Lu- 
ther adhere less pertinaciously to the doc- 
trine of predestination and of justification 
by faith alone than to that of the Real 
Presence in the Eucharist. In support of 
these opinions, he warmly attacked Eras- 
mus, who had attempted to maintain the 
freedom of the human will ; and when 
that great scholar replied in his Hyperas- 
pistes, Luther increased his vehemence to 
scurrility and abuse. ' That exasperated 
viper, Erasmus/ says he, 'has again at- 
tacked me. What eloquence will the vain- 



The Church One. 2 1 3 

glorious animal display in the overthrow of 
Luther!' In defending his opinion as to 
the all-sufficiency of faith he suffered him- 
self to be carried to a still further ex- 
treme, and, after having vindicated his 
doctrine against councils and popes and 
fathers, he at length impeached the au- 
thority of one of the apostles, asserting 
that the Epistle of James, in which the 
necessity of good works to a perfect faith 
is expressly stated and beautifully illustrat- 
ed, was, in comparison with the writings 
of Peter and of Paul, a mere book of 
straw."* 

Having laid down, as the very corner- 
stone of Protestantism, the principle of 
private judgment, it is not at all strange 
that his companions and disciples wished 
to claim the same for themselves, and 

* Life of Leo X., vol. ii. pp. 255, 256. 



214 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

hence there was no end to disputes, divi- 
sions, and dissensions, even during the life- 
time of Luther, whose temper was by no 
means thereby improved. This is well de- 
scribed by an English Protestant divine, 
the late Dr. Home, who said : " Luther, 
having established the right which each 
individual possesses of interpreting the Sa- 
cred Scriptures, asserted too that, assisted 
by the light of reason, he possessed also 
the privilege of affixing to them their true 
interpretation. Admitting, with Luther, at 
least the former of these principles, Zuin- 
glius presents himself, but boldly declares 
that not Luther but he — and long be- 
fore Luther, likewise — had found out their 
genuine interpretation. Here Carlostadt 
comes forth, and, with equal intrepidity, 
proclaims that he has made a more accu- 
rate discovery of their real signification 



The C J lurch One. 215 

than either of the above apostles ; and in- 
stantly, in defiance of his masters autho- 
rity, breaks in pieces the images which he 
found in the churches at Wittenberg, and 
excites great commotion^ in that city. 
Not long after this these three leaders 
of the Reformation commenced their dis- 
putes respecting the Holy Eucharist — a dis- 
pute in which were often blended circum- 
stances the most ludicrous with acts of 
violence the most atrocious. The cham- 
pions on each side drew after them each 
an immense multitude of followers in dif- 
ferent kingdoms, provinces, and districts, 
just as the pretended evidence of the sense 
of the Scriptures or their pretended in- 
spiration actuated them ; or, rather, just as 
their ignorance and their passions, which 
were under the control of the passions of 
their leaders, conducted them." 



2 1 6 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

This is a sad but true picture of the re- 
ligious revolution begun by Luther and 
his associates. They undermined the very 
foundations of all Church authority, and 
then, strange as it may seem, were amaz- 
ed to find that their own authority was 
likewise rejected. " This was fully shown 
in the Protestant Synod of Dort (1618- 
161 9), which condemned the chief of the 
Arminian sect and demanded submission 
to its decrees. The Arminians, following 
logically the principles of the first " Re- 
formers," protested in these terms : " Why 
exact that our inspiration or judgment 
should yield to your opinion ? The opin- 
ions of every society, our apostles, the first 
reformers, declared to be fallible ; and 
consequently to exact submission to its 
dictates they, with great consistency, de- 
fined to be tyranny. Thus they defined 



The Church One. 2 1 7 

it in regard to the Church of Rome, and 
you yourselves have sanctioned their de- 
cision. Why, therefore, exercise a domin- 
ion over us which you stigmatize as tyr- 
anny in a Church compared with whose 
greatness - you dwindle into insignificance ? 
If there be any crime in resisting the de- 
cisions of our pastors, then are you, and 
we, and all of us guilty of resisting the 
authority of the Church of Rome, which 
existed before us, and of which our fore- 
fathers were a portion. If, indeed, such re- 
sistance be a crime, then let us altogether 
abandon the Reformation and run back to 
the bosom of Catholicity. Or, if such re- 
sistance be no crime, why require from 
us a submission which we do not owe 
you ? . . . Either, in short, allow us the 
liberty which our forefathers claimed and 
yourselves approve, or let us altogether 



2 1 8 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

run back to the fold which the}' abandon- 
ed." For those who admit the Protestant 
principle there is certainly no escape from 
such a dilemma. 

The greater the lapse of time from the 
period of the <4 Reformation," the more 
cool and impartial the judgments of think- 
ing men become with regard to its chief 
characters and its influence — whether ad- 
vantageous or otherwise — on the welfare 
of mankind. Many distinguished non- 
Catholic writers have done much to re- 
move false impressions, and to place the 
action of the Catholic Church and of its 
chief pontiffs in a clearer light than was 
ever before exhibited. 

James Anthony Froude — a bitter ene- 
my of Catholicity — is obliged to admit 
that "an unfavorable estimate of the Re- 
formers, whether just or unjust, is unques- 



The Church One. 219 

tionably gaining ground among our ad- 
vanced thinkers. A greater man than 
either Macaulay or Buckle — the German 
poet Goethe — says of Luther that he threw 
back the intellectual progress of mankind 
for centuries by calling in the passions of 
the multitude to decide on subjects which 
ought to have been left to the "learned." * 
The majority of Protestants are under 
the impression that the " Reformation" 
brought about the emancipation of the 
human race from all kinds of tyranny, 
that the Reformers themselves were the 
great champions, in fact the apostles, of 
liberty; while nothing is farther from the 
truth. Guizot, the Protestant historian of 
France, in his work on Civilization in 
Europe declares the contrary : "In Ger- 
many there was no political liberty ; the 

* Short Studies, " Erasmus and Luther," p. 44. 



220 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Reformation did not introduce it ; it 
strengthened rather than enfeebled the 
power of princes ; it was rather opposed 
to the free institutions of the Middle 
Ages than favorable to their progress. ,, * 
" It emancipated the human mind/' the 
same writer declares, " and yet pretended 
still to govern it by laws. ... It did 
not know or respect all the rights of hu- 
man thought ; at the very time it was de- 
manding these rights for itself it was vio- 
lating them towards others." Then Guizot 
points out the beautiful contrast : " There 
never was a government more consistent 
and systematic than that of the Church 
of Rome. In point of fact, the Court of 
Rome made more compromises and con- 
cessions than the Reformation ; in point 
of principle, it adhered much more closely 

* Page 28. 



The Church One. 221 

to its system, and maintained a more con- 
sistent line of conduct." 

At the beginning of his religious rebel- 
lion Luther seemed to favor human liber- 
ty ; but the patronage he received from 
some of the ruling princes soon changed 
his tone, and as he advanced in years the 
stronger advocate did he become of des- 
potism. The poor, wretched, misguided 
peasants of Germany, who simply carried 
into effect Luther's own principles, found 
in him a most bitter and relentless enemy. 
To give only one instance out of many 
that could easily be adduced, Luther, in 
his letter to Caspar M tiller, the Chancel- 
lor of Mansfeld, says: "A rebel dees not 
deserve to be treated with reason ; we 
must answer him with the fist until his 
nose bleeds and his head flies in the air. 
The peasants would not hear me ; we 



222 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

must open their ears by means of the 
musket. To the one who calls me unkind 
and unmerciful I answer this : Merciful 
or unmerciful, we are now speaking about 
God's Word, which demands the honor 
of the king and the destruction of the 
rebel."* "I, Martin Luther, have slain all 
the peasants in the insurrection, because I 
commanded them to be killed. Their 
blood is upon my head. But I put it 
on the Lord God, by whose command 
I spoke." f So much for the so-called 
" champion of liberty " and " emancipator 
of the human race." 

Notwithstanding all the heresies that 
have arisen in different ages, and the la- 
mentable religious secession of the six- 
teenth century with its most prolific 

* Sammliche Werke, 24, 295-319. 
fib., 59, 284-285. Quoted by Stang. 



The Church One. 223 

offspring of warring sects, the Catholic 
Church stands the same as ever, with its 
consistent rule of faith and its invariable 
standard of truth, living amid so many 
changes and yet unchanged itself, and chal- 
lenging the admiration of all enlightened 
men, even of those who, unhappily for 
themselves, remain outside its holy com- 
munion. All clear minds and earnest 
seekers after truth cannot but feel its at- 
tractive power — an attraction of more than 
human force — for they must feel some of 
the influence of that Divine Presence al- 
ways subsisting in its bosom, and calling 
them to its light and grace and truth : 
" And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all things to myself."* "Come 
to me, all you that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will refresh you." f 

*St. John xii. 32. f St. Matt. xi. 28. 



224 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Professor Seelye, the author of Ecce 
Homo, in his latest work on Natural- 
Religion, gives the following testimony 
to the attractive power of the Catholic 
Church : " When we try to explain the 
fascination which that system exerts we 
say : ' Catholicism is definite, has real dog- 
mas, from which it does not flinch ; it ex- 
alts and satisfies the soul, which the cold 
and prosaic Protestant or rationalistic sys- 
tems leave untouched/ This is the lan- 
guage used, but it confuses together two 
perfectly distinct advantages which Catho- 
licism happens to unite. Catholicism is 
powerful, no doubt, because it does not 
explain away heaven and hell ; but its 
warmth, its poetic charm, have nothing to 
do with the inflexibility of its dogmas. 
These are owing to something else ; they 
are the reward of the firmness with which 



The Church One. 225 

it clings to the true idea of a religion, 
basing its moral discipline upon true wor- 
ship, enthusiastic and intimate contempla- 
tion of ideals of saintly humanity." * 

The Catholic Church, then, is remark- 
able, first and above all, for its unity of 
doctrine. It is noted, secondly, for its 
unity of worship. This unity of worship 
is primarily to be found in the Mass— 
the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of 
Christ, the renewal, in an unbloody man- 
ner, of the sacrifice of Calvary, and effect- 
ed on our altars in every -part of the 
world through the ministry of the priests 
of the Church, the representatives of our 
Chief High-Priest, Jesus, the Lord. There 
may be, as in the. East, some slight dif- 
ferences of rites or ceremonies, but the 
Sacrifice is one and the same, and by it 

* Page 161. 



226 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

is rendered to Almighty God a worship 
worthy of Him and His infinite perfec- 
tions. This is the central act of worship, 
the source of perennial life to the Church, 
the clean oblation prophesied by Mal- 
achy, that is offered "from the rising of 
the sun to the setting thereof." All kneel 
before the same altar and worship the 
same God-Man, with His Flesh and 
Blood, Soul and Divinity, actually present 
under the sacramental veils, the appear- 
ances of bread and wine. " This do," 
said Christ to His apostles, " for a com- 
memoration of Me." * This the Catholic 
Church has done in compliance with His 
commands and gifted with His power and 
authority, and this she will continue to do 
until time shall be no more and the 
Church militant shall be transformed into 

*St. Luke xxii. 19. 



The C fiurc/i One. 227 

the Church triumphant in the everlasting 
abode of God. 

The members of the Catholic Church 
are not onlv united in worship, but also in 
the reception of the same means of grace, 
the seven life-giving sacraments, instituted 
by our Blessed Lord for the salvation 
and sanctiiication of souls. As soon as 
our infantile eves begin to open on this 
world, our Holy Mother, the Church, re- 
ceives us lovingly into her arms, pours 
on our heads the regenerating waters of 
baptism, makes us truly and really the 
children of God and joint-heirs with Je- 
sus Christ of His eternal inheritance. 
Then, after necessary instructions in the 
doctrines of our religion, and at an age 
before the passions have had time to be- 
come strong, she strengthens us in the 
Holy Ghost by the imposition of our 



228 The Keys of the Kt7tgdom. 

bishop's hands, and we thus receive fresh 
strength for our approaching contest with 
the world and all its delusive charms, with 
the flesh and its alluring temptations, with 
the devil and his many snares. 

When we have had the misfortune to 
stain our beautiful baptismal robe by 
grievous sin, she extends to us " a sec- 
ond plank of safety " in the Sacrament 
of Penance, lest we should suffer ship- 
wreck of soul. She then leads us gently 
and reverently to the altar every year of 
our life, and oftentimes, should we so de- 
sire, during the course of each year, to be 
fed and refreshed with the very Flesh and 
Blood of our loving Redeemer. 

Those who are called to the marriage 
state she instructs in their duties, pre- 
pares for the worthy reception of this 
great sacrament, and solemnly blesses their 



The Church 0?ie. 229 

fond union with the richest benedictions 
of Heaven. Those whom the Church 
deems fit to minister at her altar, and 
who "are called by God as Aaron was," 
she prepares, by long years of study, 
prayer, and solitude, for their high and 
holy office, and endows them with god- 
like powers. When the moment of our 
earthly dissolution approaches she anoints 
with her consecrated oils those different 
senses by which we have offended God, 
inspires us with sentiments of true sorrow, 
pours consolation into our weak, failing 
hearts, brings her Divine Spouse to meet 
us in the Holy Viaticum, beseeches Him 
to accompany us in our approaching jour- 
ney, and closes our eyes in the peace of 
God — " that peace which surpasseth all un- 
derstanding." 

The Catholic Church is noted not only 



230 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

for unity in doctrine and worship, but 
also, and in a most striking manner, for 
unity of government. Most- truly is it 
the " one fold under the one shepherd." 
The Catholic laity are subject to their re- 
spective pastors, the priests are obedient 
to their bishops, and all the bishops of 
the entire Catholic world are in close 
communion with, and entirely obedient 
to, the Holy Father the Pope, the legiti- 
mate successor of St. Peter, the Rock 
upon which Christ built His Church, the 
holder of the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven, who has power to bind and to 
loose, and to feed the whole flock, the 
"sheep" as well as the "lambs."' 

As I have already dwelt at some length 
in a former work — Stumblmg-B locks Made 
Stepping-Stones on the Road to the Cath- 
olic Church — on the primacy as well as 



The Church One. 231 

the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff, I 
shall close this chapter by quoting Glad- 
stone's graphic description of the govern- 
ment of the Catholic Church : " The 
Christian community under him (the pope) 
is organized like an army, in which each 
order is in strict subjection to every order 
that is above it A thousand bishops are 
its generals ; some two hundred thousand 
clergy are its subordinate officers ; the 
laity are its proletarians. The auxiliary 
forces of this great military establishment 
are the monastic orders, and they differ 
from the auxiliaries of other armies in 
that they have a yet stricter discipline 
and a more complete dependence on the 
head than the ordinary soldiery. . . . To 
the charm of an unbroken continuity, to 
the majesty of an immense mass, to the 
energy of a closely serried organization, 



232 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

it adds another and a more legitimate 
source of strength. It undeniably con- 
tains within itself a large portion of the 
individual life of Christendom. The faith, 
the hope, the charity which it was the 
office of the Gospel to engender flourish 
within this precinct in the hearts of mil- 
lions upon millions."- 



£be Cburcb Ibol^ 




jjOD is infinite holiness personified. 
He is the essence of all good- 
ness, all beauty, all perfection. 
All His works show forth, each in its 
own measure, these wondrous attributes 
of the Almighty. More especially must 
this be true of His grandest creation on 
earth — the establishment of His one true 
Church, which He destined to continue, 
as long as this world lasts, the most im- 
portant work of His Divine Son incar- 
nate. 

Hence, as the Church is the perfect 
image of God in His unity, so also must 
it be His image in holiness — the second 



234 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

distinctive as well as essential mark or 
characteristic of the one true Church. 
That holiness should be one of its most 
shining marks was, without doubt, the 
most earnest desire of our Blessed Lord, 
as St. Paul clearly intimates: " Christ 
also loved the Church, and delivered Him- 
self up for it, that He might sanctify it, 
cleansing it by the laver of water in the 
word of life; that He might present it to 
Himself a glorious Church, not having 
spot or wrinkle, nor any such thing ; but 
that it should be holy and without 
blemish." * 

To have a just, undeniable claim to the 
character of holiness a Church should be 
holy in its founder, holy in its doctrine, 
holy in its code of morals, its counsels of 
perfection, its abundant means of sanctifi- 

* Ephesians v. 25-27. 



The Church Holy. 235 

cation, and holy likewise in the number 
of its members, whom in every age of its 
history it has raised to such a heroic de- 
gree of virtue as to be held and solemnly 
pronounced worthy of veneration and imi- 
tation. Such, we are proud to say, is the 
character of our Holy Mother the Ca- 
tholic Church. To holiness under all these 
aspects she can and does lay claim ; and, 
what is more, she is abundantly able to 
substantiate these claims before the world, 
and thus convince all sincere, truth-loving, 
unprejudiced minds. 

Jesus Christ was the Founder of the 
Catholic Church. To deny this would be 
to deny all history, profane as well as sa- 
cred. Who, even in this age of rampant 
scepticism, would take it upon himself to 
call in question His holiness ? Thanks be 
to God, our age is not so bad as to try 



236 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

to displace Christ from the position He 
holds over the hearts of the vast majority 
of civilized men. There are many, unfor- 
tunately, who deny His divinity, and who 
refuse to carry their cross and to walk 
in His sacred footsteps ; yet even they are 
willing to admit that Christ was a most 
holy, a perfect Man — in fact, the model 
of the whole human race. So we need 
not linger here to point out or dwell 
upon the sublimity of His virtues or the 
perfection of His character, which have 
added a new, more lasting and brilliant 
light to this lower world — a light more 
beneficial as well as more resplendent 
than the grand, majestic orb of day, the 
source of life and health and vigor. 

In another work — All for Love — the au- 
thor has treated of the divine as well as 
of the human side of the Saviour of men. 



T re A lit 257 

The Apostles, or chief messengers of 

Christ — those whom He selected for the 

iblishment of His Church — were men 

distinguished for their holiness of life. 
They were remarkable for entire devoted- 
ness to their sacred calling;, for their ab- 
solute self-sacrifice, their patience, their 
fortitude and heroism amid the most ter- 
rible trials, persecutions, and harassing 
labors. They gave the best possible proof 
of sincerity by relinquishing all that men 
hold most dear for the sake of truth. 
They abandoned their ordinary vocations 
in life, left their families, sundered every 
human tie that bound them to earth, 
courted ignominy, suffering, and even 
death, for the sake of their Beloved Mas- 
ter and for the furtherance of . that ob- 
ject so dear to His loving heart — the 
spread of the true faith and the conse- 



238 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

quent conversion of souls. They went 
forth " conquering and to conquer n in 
the name of the Crucified ; their sound 
went forth unto the uttermost bounds, 
and their preaching renewed the face of 
the earth. 

So was it likewise with those apostolic 
men who, at different periods of the Chris- 
tian era, went forth, armed with the au- 
thority of the Vicar of Christ, to make 
conquests of souls for the Lord, to bring 
whole nations into the true fold. They 
were holy men, who practised all the 
Christian virtues, even in an heroic de- 
gree, and their sanctity was proven by 
numerous, well-attested miracles. 

Such were, for instance, St. Patrick, 
the Apostle of Ireland ; St. Augustine, 
the Apostle of England ; St. Boniface, 
of Germany ; St. Martin and St. Remy, 



The Church Holy. 239 

of France, and St. Francis Xavier, the 
great Apostle of the Indies. 

What religion, other than the Catholic, 
can bring forward even one example of 
sanctity that can, in the smallest degree, 
compare with these and the almost count- 
less other saints whom we could name ? 
Surely not even the greatest admirers of 
the so-called Reformers, the founders of 
the different sects, will go so far as to 
claim that they were saints. No intelli- 
gent, well-read Protestant who has care- 
fully studied the history of the religious 
secession of the sixteenth century, and 
who has read the lives as well as the writ- 
ings of Luther and his associates, would 
dare claim for them any degree of holi- 
ness. This is the mildest manner in which 
I can express it. 

If we take the declarations of Luther 



240 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

himself or of those who knew him well, 
he was very far from being a holy man, 
even if we abstain from all reference to 
his disobedience and apostasy. Judged 
according to the standard of the Christian 
Church for fifteen centuries previous to 
his advent, and even according to his own 
acknowledgment, Luther was a far better 
man, more moral, upright, pure, conscien- 
tious, and prayerful, before he left his 
monastery than he was at any time after- 
wards. In his commentary on St. Paul's 
Epistle to the Galatians he thus speaks 
of himself : " When I lived in my mon- 
astery I punished my body with watch- 
ing and fasting and prayer. I observed 
my vows of chastity, of poverty and obe- 
dience. Whatever I did I did with sin- 
gleness of heart, with good zeal, and for 
the glory of God. I feared grievously the 



The Church Holy. 241 

last day, and was desirous to be saved 
from the bottom of my heart." Here is 
a different portrait of himself in after- 
years : "I am burnt with the flames of 
my untamed flesh. ... I, who ought to be 
fervent in spirit, am fervent in impurity. ,, 
In writing to his so-called wife, Katharina 
von Bora, he conveys this piece of infor- 
mation : " I am feeding like a Bohemian 
and swilling like a German, thanks be to 
God." 

Sleydam, his favorite disciple, said of 
Luther : " He was so sensible of his own 
immorality that he wished to be removed 
from the office of preaching." Luther 
was proud, irascible, gross, and lustful. 
As the Rev. Dr. Brann said in a late lec- 
ture, no publisher in this country would 
dare publish the entire works of Luther 
in English. They contain so many in- 



242 The Keys of the Kingdom, 

decencies (especially his sermon on mar- 
riage) we feel certain that Special Agent 
Comstock would not permit them to pass 
through the mail. The gentle Melanch- 
thon said of his leader : " I tremble when 
I consider the passions of Luther — pas- 
sions as violent as the outrages of Her- 
cules, Philoctetes, and Marius." As to 
Calvin, Schusselburge says : " Horrible 
things are objected to Calvin in public 
meetings, concerning his lasciviousness, 
his sundry abominable vices, and his sodo- 
mitical lusts. And it was in punishment 
of these and of his profane doctrines that 
the rod of divine justice fell so heavily 
upon him at his death, for he died in de- 
spair, blaspheming God." 

Much more could be said on this sub- 
ject, and fortified also by the testimonies 
of those not of the Catholic faith ; for, 



The Ckurch Holy. 243 

as my readers cannot but notice, when I 
have anything that may seem harsh to say, 
yet necessary to be told, I prefer using 
the declarations of Protestants themselves. 
Such facts as these just related are not 
agreeable, but, whether agreeable or not, 
the interests of truth demand that they 
should not be overlooked. Charity should 
begin at home. Those who wish to re- 
form others should begin by reforming 
themselves. 

Catholics cannot but condemn the re- 
ligious secession of the sixteenth century, 
and, in fact, every other attempt to rend 
asunder that unity 'which Jesus Christ 
wishes to preserve inviolate. Luther's re- 
volt was terrible in itself and in its con- 
sequences. It severed millions of limbs 
from the parent tree, and checked to no 
small extent the spread of faith in many 



244 The Keys of the Kingdt 



om. 



nations still living in " the darkness of the 
shadow of death/' Yet it was not, after 
all, an absolutely unmixed evil. By its 
means many left the Church who, while 
living in it, only cast reproach upon it, 
more especially unworthy monks, nuns, 
and priests, who were only too anxious 
for some pretext to cast off the yoke of 
chastity, poverty, and obedience. Luther, 
whether he wished to do so or not, cer- 
tainly rendered good assistance to the 
pope, as Dean Swift was accustomed to 
say, in "weeding his garden." 

When the Church is fully at peace and 
in the enjoyment of undisturbed pros- 
perity, there is sometimes a lack of energy, 
self-sacrifice, devotedness in its clergy. 
Soldiers who fear no immediate attack 
from the enemy are apt to ground arms. 

Persecution is neither to be coveted nor 



The Church Holy. 245 

invited, it is true, yet Catholics cannot 
but admit that the Church is purer and 
more vigorous the more difficulties it has 
to overcome, the more assaults it has to 
bear. A body of clergy living in the 
midst of enemies to their faith will al- 
ways be more watchful over themselves, 
more alert, more prepared to meet and 
triumph over obstacles, than those residing 
in undisturbed districts where the popu- 
lation is entirely Catholic. This is one 
of the reasons why the priesthood of Ire- 
land is so highly respected and revered, 
even by those not of our faith. W. E. 
Hartpole Lecky, in his History of Euro- 
pean Morals, pays the Irish priesthood 
this beautiful tribute : " There is no fact 
in Irish history more singular than the 
complete and, I believe, unparalleled ab- 
sence among the Irish priesthood of those 



246 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

moral scandals which in every Continen- 
tal country prove the danger of vows of 
celibacy. The unsuspected purity of the 
Irish priests is the more remarkable be- 
cause, the government of the country be- 
ing Protestant, there is no special inquisi- 
torial legislation to insure it, because of 
the almost unbounded influence of the 
clergy over their parishioners, and also be- 
cause, if any just cause of suspicion ex- 
isted, in the fierce sectarianism of Irish 
public opinion it would assuredly be mag- 
nified."* 

It is generally under such circumstan- 
ces of trial and opposition that the 
highest degree of virtue is called forth 
and exhibited to the world. This it is 
that renders our clergy in this great coun- 
try so active and so zealous. No body 

*Vol. i. p. 146. 



The Church Holy. 247 

of clergy in the world undergoes more 
labor or hardship. Christian fortitude is 
developed by every new contest. It is 
thus that God turns evil into good for 
the sake of the Church which He came 
upon earth to establish, and for the con* 
sequent spiritual welfare of the human 
race. 

The Catholic Church, then, is holy not 
only in its Founder and first apostles, but 
also in its teachings, moral as well as dog- 
matical. It holds up before the world and 
to each succeeding generation of men the 
same unchangeable system of divine truth, 
the same everlasting fact of revelation 
one and unalterable. It broaches nothing 
new, but holds up the old truths and dis- 
plays them in a clearer, fuller light than 
before, thus opening up before our en- 
raptured gaze side-views and fresh beauties 



248 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

hitherto but imperfectly disclosed or par- 
tially hidden in the sacred deposit of faith 
handed down by the apostles. 

As to its moral code, nothing in the 
world is so complete, so exact, so far- 
reaching, or so sublime. Its code of 
morals is founded on the unchanging and 
unchangeable principles of the natural law, 
the Ten Commandments, the moral les- 
sons of Christ, His precepts and coun- 
sels. Every kind of sin that can be con- 
ceived is condemned, and on every human 
passion it puts a check. No vice, nor 
even imperfection, is in any way favored. 
Its moral code is so perfect that it reaches 
the innermost thoughts of men ; for Christ 
condemns the impure gaze and the im- 
pure desire no less than acts of impurity, 
as these sins are consummated in the 
heart : " For out of the heart proceed evil 



The Church Holy. 249 

thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, 
thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies." * 

Not even the simplest lie, which, when 
not productive of grievous injury, is only 
a venial fault, does the Church declare 
permissible, were it to save life or to avert 
serious injury from the Church itself. 
The charge that she believes in the prin- 
ciple that " the end justifies the means " 
is the grossest calumny that has ever been 
uttered against the Church of Christ. Sa- 
tan himself could not invent a baser false- 
hood. 

As Cardinal John Henry Newman forci- 
bly declares : " She holds that it were bet- 
ter for sun and moon to drop from hea- 
ven, for the earth to fail, and for all the 
many millions who are upon it to die of 
starvation in extremest agony, so far as 

♦St. Matt. xv. 19. 



250 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

temporal affliction goes, than that one 
soul, I will not say should be lost, but 
should commit one venial sin, should tell 
one wilful untruth, though it harmed no 
one, or steal one poor farthing without 
excuse." * 

The Catholic Church has a special re- 
gard not only for the holiness of the indi- 
vidual, but also exercises a most anxious 
guardianship over the sanctity of family 
life. Hence she has always maintained, 
and with a steadfastness more than natu- 
ral, the indissolubility of the marriage-tie. 
Many a terrible struggle she has been 
obliged to sustain during all the long ages 
of her varied history, many a mighty con- 
test with kings and emperors, in order to 
preserve inviolate the sacramental bond. 
In vain did the powerful ones of the earth 

* Anglican Difficulties , p. 190. 



The Church Holy. 251 

strive to wrest some concession from the 
Church on this great point. In vain they 
threatened and in vain they persecuted ; 
she could never be shaken from her noble 
stand. Whole kingdoms were at stake, 
yet she wavered not. She could have 
preserved Great Britain to the fold, if she 
but consented to the passionate demand 
of Henry VIII. to be freed from the 
bond that joined him to his lawful wife ; 
but the Church preferred to lose a king- 
dom than to abandon a principle. 

What a striking contrast between the 
noble action of the Church and its Sove- 
reign Pontiff and the truckling conduct of 
the chief " Reformers," who, to secure for 
themselves and their cause the influence 
of Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, gave 
him permission (which no power on earth 
could do) to take to himself another wife 



252 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

while the first was yet living ! The great 
Bossuet gives us in his History of Protes- 
tant Variations a copy of the original 
text in Latin, with a French translation, 
from which we take a few extracts : 
" Most Serene Prince and Lord : We 
have been informed by Bucer, and in the 
instructions which your highness gave 
him have read, the trouble of mind and 
the uneasiness of conscience your high- 
ness is under at this present ; and although 
it seemed to us very difficult so speedily 
to answer the doubt proposed, neverthe- 
less we would not permit the said Bucer, 
who was urgent for his return to your 
highness, to go away without an answer 
in writing. . . . Your highness is not ig- 
norant how great need our poor, mise- 
rable, little, and abandoned church stands 
in need of virtuous princes and rulers to 



The Church Holy. 253 

protect her ; and we doubt not but God 
will always supply her with some such, al- 
though from time to time He threatens to 
deprive her of them, and proves her by 
sundry temptations. These things seem 
to us of greatest importance in the ques- 
tion which Bucer has proposed to us ; 
your highness sufficiently of yourself com- 
prehends the difference there is betwixt 
settling an universal law and using (for 
urgent reasons and with God's permission) 
a dispensation in a particular case. . . . 
As to what your highness says, that it is 
not possible for you to abstain from this 
impure life, we wish you were in a better 
state before God, that you lived with a 
secure conscience, and labored for the sal- 
vation of your own soul and the welfare 
of your subjects. But, after all, if your 
highness is fully resolved to marry a sec- 



254 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ond wife, we judge it ought to be done 
secretly, as we have said with regard to 
the dispensation demanded on the same 
account — that is, that none but the per- 
son you shall wed, and a few trusty per- 
sons, know of the matter, and they, too, 
obliged to secrecy under the seal of con- 
fession. . . . Your highness hath, there- 
fore, in this writing not only the appro- 
bation of us all, in case of necessity, con- 
cerning what you desire, but also the re- 
flections we have made thereupon ; we 
beseech you to weigh them as becoming 
a virtuous, wise, and Christian prince. . . . 
We are most ready to serve your high- 
ness. Given at Wittenberg, the Wednes- 
day after the Feast of St. Nicholas, 1539. 
Your highness' most humble and obedient 
subjects and servants, Martin Luther, 
Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, An- 



The Church Holy. 255 

tony Corvin, Adam, John Leningue, Jus- 
tus Winferte, Denis Melanther." 

George Nuspicher, Notary Imperial, tes- 
tified that he made an exact copy of the 
original document, which was, he declares, 
in Melanchthon's handwriting. 

Thus was the door thrown open to con- 
tempt of the holy Sacrament of Matri- 
mony, and that divorces should follow and 
increase among non-Catholics as time goes 
on is but a natural consequence of the evil 
example just cited. Professor Kostlin, in 
his one-sided Life of Luther, says, with 
regard to this so-called dispensation grant- 
ed to Philip, that " friends of the Evan- 
gelical and Lutheran belief can only la- 
ment the decision Luther pronounced in 
the matter. ,, 

Marriage, outside of the Catholic Church, 
is no longer looked upon as a sacrament, 



256 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

but simply as a contract, which, under 
certain easy conditions, may be broken. 
The laws in this country are wofully loose 
on this important point, and the enact- 
ments of one State are at variance with 
those of another. All men possessed of 
sincere Christian feeling, and who have at 
heart the prosperity of this great republic, 
tremble for the fate of the nation. Di- 
vorce saps the very foundation of the fam- 
ily, and, as every one that thinks must 
know, when the family is undermined the 
state itself has no solid foundation upon 
which to rest. 

Alliances are formed in haste, and as 
hastily sundered. Men are governed by 
whims, fancies, sudden impulses of passion, 
and the doctrines of free love — concealed, 
perhaps, under a more high-sounding name 
— are practically followed, Christian mo- 



The Church Holy. 257 

tives for marriage are cast aside, and Chris- 
tian modesty is at a discount. 

What power can stop the ever-growing 
evil ? Intelligent non-Catholics are now 
willing to admit that the Catholic Church 
alone, with its unchangeable doctrine, can 
place the necessary barrier. The Rev. Dr. 
Morgan Dix — one of the most highly-re- 
spected ministers of the Protestant Epis- 
copal denomination and rector of Trinity 
Church, New York City — bravely spoke 
his sentiments on this grave subject in his 
"Lenten Conferences" of 1883. "Moral 
poison," he says, "is in the air we breathe; 
it threatens the life of man, woman, and 
child ; it stifles, it chokes, it makes the 
whole head sick and the whole heart faint ; 
it kills and dries up from the roots the 
love of chastity, virtue, and honor. I am 
not alone in speaking on this point ; I do 



258 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

but repeat the words of men much higher 
in position in the Church, and with larger 
responsibilities. Let us hear the eminent 
and learned Bishop of Connecticut. In 
his convention address of 1881 he said: 
4 There were in the year of grace 1878, in 
Maine, 478 divorces ; in New Hampshire, 
241; in Vermont, 197; in Massachusetts, 
600; in Connecticut, 401; and in Rhode 
Island, 196 — making a total of 2,113, an d 
a larger ratio, in proportion to the popula- 
tion, than in France in the days of the 
Revolution, though far less than in the 
city of Paris. On the basis of population 
by the present census there was one di- 
vorce to every 1,357 inhabitants in Maine, 
one to every 1,439 m New Hampshire, one 
to every 1,687 ' m Vermont, one to every 
2,971 in Massachusetts, one to every 1,553 
in Connecticut, and one to every 1,411 



The Church Holy. 259 

in Rhode Island/ Listen to some more 
statistics, taken still," Dr. Dix says, "from 
the shameful record of the New England 
States, which seem to be the centre of 
this moral cesspool. In the State of 
Massachusetts in i860 there were five 
causes for which divorce could be obtain- 
ed, and a ratio of one divorce to fifty-one 
marriages. In 1878 the number of causes 
for which divorce was allowed had ad- 
vanced to nine, and the ratio to one di- 
vorce for every twenty-one marriages. In 
other New England States the case was 
even worse. In Vermont the ratio was 
one divorce to thirteen marriages, in Rhode 
Island the ratio was one divorce to ten 
marriages, in Connecticut the ratio was 
one divorce to ten marriages, New Hamp- 
shire showed about the same proportion, 
and in Maine it was even worse. Another 



260 The Keys of the Kingdo7n. 

fact must be stated. From the total of 
marriages registered in the several States 
those contracted and solemnized by Ro- 
man Catholics must be deducted ; for they 
— all honor to them ! — allow no divorce a 
vinculOy following literally the command of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Among Protestants 
or non-Roman Catholics the divorces oc- 
cur ; and these run up to as high a rate 
as one divorce in every fourteen mar- 
riages — in Massachusetts and in Connecti- 
cut to one in every eight. The practical 
result of this facility of divorce is that in 
the New England States alone families 
are broken up at the rate of two thousand 
every year. And, again, note this : that 
while the laws protecting marriage have 
thus gradually weakened, and facilities for 
divorce extended, crimes against chastity, 
morality, and decency have been steadily 



The Church Holy. 261 

increasing. . . . Looseness of legislation has 
suggested and encouraged looseness of liv- 
ing, and disproved the plea that sins against 
chastity will diminish if the law regulating 
marriage is made less strict."* 

The Rev. Samuel W. Dike, Corre- 
sponding Secretary of the New England 
Divorce Reform League, says : " The 
great increase in the number of divorces 
in the last few years was a matter to ex- 
cite alarm. In New England, within 
eighteen or twenty years, the number of 
divorces had doubled, far outrunning the 
increase in population. . . . Familiarity 
with the idea of divorce is increasing and 
working much mischief. It first perme- 
ates the lower strata of society, and gradu- 
ally rises to the upper classes. Young 
people often marry under a deliberate 

* The Calling of a Christian Woman, pp. 1 21-124. 



262 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

consciousness that the tie can be loosed 
if they so wish, and sometimes with a de- 
liberate purpose to do so if desirable. 
Thus a Vermont couple not long ago 
married on a probation of six months, the 
bargain being struck to secure a divorce 
at the end of that time if dissatisfied with 
each other. There have been a number 
of well-authenticated cases in Vermont of 
swapping wives, the divorce courts being 
called in to legalize the exchange. Con- 
necticut boasts women who have been 
divorced from four husbands and are now 
living married to a fifth." 

In the State of Massachusetts, accord- 
ing to the census of 1879, the popula- 
tion being 1,652,000 (from which the 
number of 475,000 Catholics are to be 
deducted whenever there is question of 
divorce), there were 7,223 divorces in 



The Chttrch Holy. 263 

eighteen years from i860 to 1878. It is 
said that Ireland, during all her history, 
has not permitted as many divorces as 
Massachusetts in one year. 

For a period covering five hundred and 
twenty years divorce was unknown among 
the ancient Romans, and the first record 
of one that has come down to us is that 
of Sp. Carvilius Ruga, b.c. 234. If there 
be no check to divorce in this country 
it will soon compare with the worst days 
of the Roman Empire, when women, ac- 
cording to Seneca, counted their years, 
not by the number of consuls, but by the 
number of their husbands : " Non consu- 
lum numero sed maritorum annos suos 
computant." The Rev. Dr. Dix fearless- 
ly points out the cause of this corruption 
in these manly words: "The truth must 
be told, however painfully it may strike 



264 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

the unaccustomed ear. This is not only 
a sign of an infidel society ; it is also an 
upgrowth from the principles which form 
the evil side of Protestantism. There can 
be no doubt as to the genesis of this 
abomination. I quote the language of the 
Bishop of Maine : ' Laxity of opinion 
and teaching on the sacredness of the mar- 
riage-bond and on the question of divorce 
originated among the Protestants of Con- 
tinental Europe in the sixteenth century. 
It soon began to appear in the legislation 
of Protestant states on that Continent, and 
nearly at the same time to affect the laws 
of New England. And from that time to 
the present it has proceeded from one de- 
gree to another in this country, until, es- 
pecially in New England and in States 
most directly affected by New England 
opinions and usages, the Christian con- 



The Church Holy. 265 

ception of. the nature and obligations of 
the marriage-bond finds scarcely any re- 
cognition in legislation, or, as must thence 
be inferred, in the prevailing sentiment 
of the community/ This is a heresy, 
born and bred of free thought as applied 
to religion ; it is the outcome of the habit 
of interpreting the Bible according to a 
man's private judgment, rejecting ecclesi- 
astical authority and Catholic tradition, 
and asserting our freedom to believe what 
we choose and to select what religion 
pleases us best." * No Catholic priest 
could say it better or make it stronger. 
In the Catholic Church there is every 
incitement to virtue that can be con- 
ceived. Every motive, pure and strong, 
to perfection is constantly held up before 
our eyes. There is a never-ceasing appeal 

* Calling of a Christian Woman, pp. 134, 135. 



266 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

to the hearts of men to do their utmost, 
striving for the attainment of the highest 
Christian heroism. There is, in my hum- 
ble opinion, no small number of Protest- 
ants who are far better than their creeds, 
and more exemplary in their lives than 
the first " Reformers " so-called. But this 
can never be said with truth of even the 
best Catholics. They can never be holier 
than their Church or creed ; and perfect 
indeed they may be called if they ap- 
proach in any near degree that standard 
of sanctity so firmly held up to men in 
every station of life by our Holy Mother 
the Church. 

There are different grades in Christian 
perfection. There is, for instance, the or- 
dinary way of the commandments for the 
majority of persons engaged in secular 
pursuits, for those who are more or less 



The Church Holy. 267 

immersed in the things of this life, who 
have the cares and responsibilities of fami- 
lies, and who, although busied, like Mar- 
tha, with many things, yet fail not to see 
to the unum necessarium, the one thing 
necessary — the salvation of their souls. 

There is a higher life, and a higher de- 
gree of perfection consequently, to be ob- 
tained by those who, in their ardent zeal 
and generosity of heart, are not satisfied 
with merely doing what is of strict obli- 
gation, but wish to go farther in order to 
show their love for God and their Re- 
deemer by following the path He traced 
out for them in the evangelical counsels. 
These counsels of Christ are, first, the vol- 
untary renunciation of riches ; secondly, 
the voluntary renunciation of sensual plea- 
sures, even of such as are otherwise per- 
mitted ; and, thirdly, the voluntary renunci- 



268 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ation of one's own will — in other words, 
the vows of poverty, celibacy, obedience. 
Voluntary poverty is based on the words 
of our Saviour to the young man men- 
tioned in the Gospel : " And behold, one 
came and said to Him : Good Master, 
what good shall I do that I may have 
life everlasting ? And He said to him : 
Why askest thou Me concerning good ? 
One is good, God. But if thou wilt en- 
ter into life, keep the commandments. He 
saith to Him : Which ? And Jesus said : 
Thou shalt do no murder ; Thou shalt not 
commit adultery ; Thou shalt not steal ; 
Thou shalt not bear false witness ; Honor 
thy father and thy mother ; and, Thou 
shalt * love thy neighbor as thyself. The 
young man saith to Him : All these have 
I kept from my youth ; what is yet want- 
ing to me ? Jesus saith to him : If thou 



The Church Holy. 269 

wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, 
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven ; and come, follow 
Me."* Christ counselled celibacy. "His 
disciples say unto Him : If the case of a 
man with his wife be so, it is not good 
to marry. He said to them : All receive 
not this word, but they to whom it is 
given." f In other words, a divine call is 
necessary for this higher life. " He that 
can receive it, let him receive it," says 
our Lord — Qui potest cap ere, capiat. 

St. Paul says in his First Epistle to the 
Corinthians : " I would that all men were 
even as myself : but every one hath his 
proper gift from God ; one after this man- 
ner, and another after that. But I say 
to the unmarried and the widows : It is 
good for them if they so continue, even 

* St. Matt. xix. 16-21. f Idem xix. 10, n. 



270 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

as I." * Towards the close of the same 
chapter the great apostle speaks still 
more clearly on this subject : " But I 
would have you to be without solicitude. 
He that is without a wife is solicitous for 
the things that belong to the Lord, how 
he may please God. But he that is with 
a wife is solicitous for the things of the 
world, how he may please his wife ; and 
he is divided. And the unmarried woman 
and the virgin thinketh on the things of 
the Lord, that she may be holy both in 
body and spirit. But she that is married 
thinketh on the things of the world, how 
she may please her husband. And this I 
speak for your profit, not to cast a snare 
upon you, but for that which is decent, 
and which may give you power to attend 
upon the Lord without impediment. . . . 

* I Cor. vii. 7, 8. ' 



The Chttrch Holy. 271 

Therefore both he that giveth his virgin 
in marriage doeth well ; and he that giveth 
her not doeth better." 

So likewise as to holy obedience — there 
are those who wish to imitate their Divine 
Saviour still more closely by renouncing 
their own will and submitting themselves 
to their superiors in all things that are 
not in opposition to the law of God : " I 
came down from heaven not to do My 
own will, but the will of Him that sent 
Me."* " I do always the things that please 
Him."f 

Such are the vows taken by members of 
religious orders in the Catholic Church. 
And even James Anthony Froude — bitter 
Protestant as he sometimes shows him- 
self — -felt constrained to pay these self-sac- 
rificing religious the following beautiful 

* St. John vi. 38. f Id. viii. 29. 



272 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

tribute : " They were to live for others, 
not for themselves. They took vows of 
poverty, that they might not be entangled 
in the pursuit of money. They took vows 
of chastity, that the care of a family might 
not distract them from the work which 
they had undertaken. Their efforts of cha- 
rity were not limited to this world. Their 
days were spent in hard bodily labor, in 
study, or in visiting the sick. At night 
they were on the stone floors of their 
chapels, holding up their withered hands 
to heaven, interceding for the poor souls 
who were suffering in purgatory. The 
world, as it always will, paid honor to ex- 
ceptional excellence. The system spread 
to the farthest limits of Christendom. The 
religious houses became places of refuge, 
where men of noble birth — kings and 
queens and emperors, warriors and states- 



The Church Holy. 273 

men — retired to lay down their splendid 
cares and end their days in peace/' * 

It was by means of these heroic vows, 
the fulfilment of the evangelical counsels, 
that apostolic missionaries, in every age of 
the history of the Church, and even in our 
own days, have gone forth to the most 
barbarous nations, carrying the cross and 
faith of Jesus Christ, planting the seed of 
His Gospel and watering it with their 
blood. No fear of danger could intimi- 
date them, no threats could deter, no pri- 
vation could repel, no sacrifice, howsoever 
great, could appall the missionaries of the 
Catholic Church in their quest of immor- 
tal souls. Absence from home and coun- 
try, the sundering of every human tie, the 
renunciation of all the chief pleasures and 
comforts of this world, the sacrifice of 

* Short Studies, p. 51. 



274 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

health and strength, ease, reputation, and 
even of life itself, they cheerfully laid on 
the altar of God, and all this in order to 
co-operate with Jesus Christ in His grand- 
est work — the salvation of souls. 

Hence whatever tends to the salvation 
or sanctification of even one soul is of in- 
finitely more value in the eyes of the 
Church than all mere material interests 
combined. In this she is fully in accord 
with the spirit of Jesus Christ, and with 
that, consequently, which animates the 
Church triumphant in heaven. She re- 
joices more over the conversion of one 
poor, miserable, despised sinner than over 
the completion of ten thousand miles of 
railway or the discovery of a hundred plan- 
ets : "There shall be joy before the angels 
of God over one sinner doing penance."* 

*St. Luke xv. 10. 



The Church Holy 275 

All the cares and all the anxieties of the 
Church tend towards one most important 
object — the welfare of the individual soul. 
As Cardinal Newman says : " It contem- 
plates, not the whole, but the parts ; not a 
nation, but the men who form it ; not so- 
ciety in the first place, but in the second 
place, and in the first place individuals ; it 
looks beyond the outward act, on and into 
the thought, the motive, the intention, and 
the will ; it looks beyond the world, and 
detects and moves against the devil, who 
is sitting in ambush behind it It has, 
then, a foe in view, nay, it has a battle- 
field, to which the world is blind ; its pro- 
per battle-field is the heart of the indivi- 
dual, and its true foe is Satan. Do not 
think I am declaiming in the air, or trans- 
lating the pages of some old worm-eaten 
homily. I bear my own testimony to what 



276 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

has been brought home to me most close- 
ly and vividly, as a matter of fact, since I 
have been a Catholic— viz., that that mighty, 
world-wide Church, like her divine Au- 
thor, regards, consults for, labors for the 
individual soul ; she looks at the souls for 
whom Christ died, and who are made over 
to her ; and her one object, for which every- 
thing is sacrificed — appearances, reputation, 
worldly triumph — is to acquit herself well 
of this most awful responsibility. Her one 
duty is to bring forward the elect to salva- 
tion, and to make them as many as she 
can ; to take offences out of their path, 
to warn them of sin, to rescue them from 
evil, to convert them, to teach them, to 
feed them, to protect them, and to perfect 
them."* 

No wonder, then, that such a divine 

* Anglican Difficulties. 



The Church Holy. 277 

Church has produced true Christian he- 
roes — real saints — in every age and in dif- 
ferent parts of the world. Even the ra- 
tionalist Lecky admits this. " It is not 
surprising/' he says, "that a religious sys- 
tem which made it a main object to in- 
culcate moral excellence, and which, by 
its doctrine of future retribution, by its 
organization, and by its capacity of pro- 
ducing a disinterested enthusiasm, acquired 
an unexampled supremacy over the hu- 
man mind, should have raised its disciples 
to a very high condition of sanctity."* 

Even in those ages when barbarism 
and corruption weighed heavily on the 
nations of Europe, when all indeed seem- 
ed dark and sad, the Church was never 
without some great saints, whose lives of 
purity, charity, and devotion relieved the 

* Hist, European Morals, vol. ii. p. ir. 



278 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

gloom and cast a most brilliant spiritual 
light on human society. Froude, the his- 
torian, gives a vivid description of the 
state of the Church in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, and most assuredly no one will ac- 
cuse him of any partiality towards our 
religion : "At the time I speak of the 
Church ruled the state with the authority 
of a conscience ; and self-interest, as a mo- 
tive of action, was only named to be ab- 
horred. The bishops and clergy were re- 
garded freely and simply as the immediate 
ministers of the Almighty ; and they seem 
to me to have really deserved that high 
estimate of their character. It was not 
for the doctrines which they taught only 
or chiefly that they were held in honor. 
Brave men do not fall dow r n before their 
fellow-mortals for the words which they 
speak or for the rites which they per- 



The Church Holy. 279 

form. Wisdom, justice, self-denial, noble- 
ness, purity, high-mindedness — these are 
the qualities before which the free-born 
races of Europe have been contented to 
bow ; and in no order of men were such 
qualities to be found as they were found 
six hundred years ago in the clergy of 
the Catholic Church. They called them- 
selves the successors of the apostles. They 
obtained in their Masters name universal 
spiritual authority, but they made good 
their pretensions by the holiness of their 
own lives. They were allowed to rule be- 
cause they deserved to rule, and, in the 
fulness of reverence, kings and nobles 
bent before a power which was nearer to 
God than their own."* 

Even in those dark days for the Church, 
during a good part of the tenth and 

* Short Studies on Great Subjects, pp. 46, 47. 



280 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

eleventh centuries, when several unwor- 
thy men were successively forced, by the 
intrigue of princes, into the Chair of Peter, 
the Catholic Church lost not its charac- 
teristic of sanctity, for many great saints 
arose to point out the way to the sub- 
lime heights of Christian perfection. Such 
were, for instance, SS. Dunstan and Odo, 
Archbishops of Canterbury ; SS. Oswald, 
Edward, Cormac, Wenceslaus, Harold, and 
Conrad in the tenth century ; and SS. 
Gregory VII., Bruno, Odilo, William, 
Edward the Confessor, St. Margaret of 
Scotland, St. Colman of Ireland, St. Ca- 
nute, King of Denmark, St. Stephen, 
King of Hungary, St. Henry II., the Em- 
peror, SS. Romuald, Bernard, and John 
Gualbert in the eleventh century. In the 
sixteenth century (the age of Luther and 
Calvin) there was a galaxy of great stars 



The Church Holy. 281 

in the spiritual firmament : SS. Pius V., 
Philip Neri, Aloysius, Ignatius, Catherine 
of Genoa, Teresa, Francis Borgia, Louis 
Bertrand, Charles Borromeo, Francis Xa- 
vier, and many others. 

If, among the twelve apostles chosen 
by Christ Himself, one was found unwor- 
thy, it is not at all strange or remarkable 
that a few — happily very few — Sovereign 
Pontiffs, out of the long list of two hun- 
dred and fifty-eight, dishonored their high 
office. Some unworthy priests, bishops, or 
even popes do not destroy the claims of 
the Catholic Church to holiness ; on the 
contrary, the corruption that did undoubt- 
edly exist, to no small extent, in some 
countries at different periods of the mid- 
dle ages, only showed that there was more 
than human power sustaining the Church — 
that it rested on the promises of Christ, 



282 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

whose words shall never fail, though hea- 
ven and earth should pass away : " Be- 
hold, I am with you all days, even unto 
the consummation of the world." 

Had the Catholic Church been merely 
a human institution it could never have 
survived the repeated shocks of fierce per- 
secution during the first three centuries of 
its history ; it would have been buried 
under the wreck of empires, the weight 
of corruption and barbarism of certain 
portions of the middle ages ; it could not 
have resisted the terrible religious revolu- 
tion of the sixteenth century, the attacks 
of infidelity in the eighteenth, nor the so- 
called scientific onslaughts of this century. 
Thanks to God and His sustaining power, 
it shows no sign of decrepit age or in- 
tellectual weakness ; it fears no attack, and 
not only stands its ground nobly, but is 



The Church Holy. 283 

gaining strength over its enemies, and is 
gradually leading new nations captive under 
the standard of the Cross. 

The Catholic Church everywhere seeks 
to extend her sway over the minds, and 
more especially over the hearts, of men. 
She graciously invites them to the altar 
of God, pours out to them from her nev- 
er-failing fountains of grace her seven life- 
giving sacraments, all the helps they need 
in the various positions in life in which 
Providence has placed them, and she 
feeds and nourishes, warms and strength- 
ens, them with the very Flesh and Blood 
of the Lamb that was slain from the be- 
ginning of the world. She invites all to a 
holy life, and generously provides them 
with the means of attaining it. She 
opens wide her arms to the returning 
prodigal, pours oil into the wounds of 



The K Kingdom, 

the he;.: *rs a solace for every woe, 

iks consoling words to the sorrowful, 
encouraging words to the despondent, and 
: : .ides homes for the afflicted and for- 
.:i. Her pries ever ready, day 

and night, "t :;d and be spent" in 

the service of God and of our neighbor, 
to face contagion, to linger by the bed- 
of loathsome disease, and to risk life 
in order to bring spiritual consolation to 
the dying sinner. Her Sisters of Charity 
and Mercy and " Little Sisters of the 
;h our crowded thorough- 
fares, helping the needy and the unfortu- 
nate, and are often found breathing the 
air of pestilence when all others have fled 
in dismay. These angels of God in hu- 
man flesh everywhere preach the sanctity 
of the Catholic Church by d Far more 

powerful than words of eloquence the 



The Clin 285 

most sublime. Gerald 

bes the Sister of Charity: 

shrinking: :eath, 

an angel she moves 'mid the vapors of death ; 
ere rings the loud musket and flashes the sword, 
rearing she walks, for she follows her Lord. 
He she bends o'er each plague- tain ted face, 

at are lighted with holiest grace 
How kindly she d esses each suffering limb, 
For - o the wounded the image of Him." 

Lecky admits that Protestantism's "com- 
plete suppression of the entual sys- 
tem Jso very far from a t to 

woman or to the world. It would he im- 
possible to conceive any institution more 
needed than one whi uld furnish a 

shelter for the : romen v. b . from 

poverty, or domestic unhappiness, :: :her 
causes, find their- 
protected into the battle of life, v.v 

ure them from the temptations 
to gross vice, and from the extremities of 



286 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

suffering, and would convert them into 
agents of active, organized, and intelligent 
charity."* The " other causes" not speci- 
fied by Mr. Leckv are nevertheless the 
predominating ones— viz., the love of God 
and of one's neighbor, as well as a desire 
for greater sanctification than can be ob- 
tained in merely secular life. 

The Church holds up to our veneration, 
and more particularly for our imitation, 
saintly models for every station in life, 
from the humblest to the highest — Jesus 
Christ Himself being the Model of mod- 
els. After our Blessed Lord the object of 
highest veneration is Mary, His Immacu- 
late Mother, then St. Joseph, St. John 
the Baptist, the holy Apostles, and other 
special friends and disciples of our Sa- 
viour. There are different examples of 

* History of European Morals, ii. p. 369. 



The Church Holy. 287 

sanctity for different stations in life — as, 
for instance, St. Isidore the shepherd, St 
Zita the servant, as well as St. Henry, St. 
Edward, St. Louis, kings and emperors. 
They had the like passions that we have, 
and temptations without doubt as strong 
as ours, and yet they overcame them by 
the same means that are within our reach, 
and attained a degree of holiness almost 
disheartening for persons of our weak 
mould and feeble purpose to contemplate. 
As Christ came upon earth "not to call 
the just but sinners to repentance/' the 
Church, by means of her divinely-institut- 
ed sacraments, seeks first for the stray, wea- 
ried, wounded sheep, and, rejoicing, brings 
them back to the fold. She watches with 
special solicitude over the little lambs of 
the flock, whom she has begotten to spirit- 
ual life at the baptismal font.- She guards 



Tlu AWs of tiu Kingdom. 

:lrfc -:_::.;; n: :er_;:e: 5e.5 — 1".. r_ :re 
fondly in tfaeir budding rears, that she 
mar enable them to preserve their charm- 
ing innocence: When reason begins to 
dawn, and before passion has secured a 
bold, die invites them to the holy tribunal 
:: .::.i:;: nere 7 ".. ii :::er.:.r..rf :::::: 
:.; :~e :_: ""ere :e.e ::r.^:.er.:e is v:\:- 
dently searched, where the youthful mind 
is warned of approaching danger and is 
furnished with arms necessary for sue: 
: e. re-5:f"-i" :e. 

>:: 1 \;-z kr. :•" :~e irrrv.er.fc ^:-:i : e: 
:? :: ~e ::::^':. :r.e : :r.:efs: :r.:^ :~e rub- 
ber of those whose innocence has been 
thereby preserved, the souls innumerable 
:..:: ::/-- : — r. :: :: :he -:::e : r.r. it. i 
re'ir.ruii'-e: :~e;: e —.'. hi:::s. :~e it.:::.: :: 
r..:r es ::'•:::: ref .::.::; :r.^ ":.:.:-:. ?.?. : r.:- 
rioos victories won over the enemv of souls. 



The Church Holy. 289 

Next to God and His blessed ones no 
one knows all this better than the Catho- 
lic priest. He sees not only the dark and 
sinful side of human nature, which many 
others can see almost equally as well, but, 
what gives him the sweetest consolations 
of his life amid all his trials, he has every 
chance of seeing the bright and holy side. 
He has every opportunity of discovering 
God's hidden saints — and, thanks to His 
holy grace, they are not so few in num- 
ber — who have never sullied their white 
baptismal robe by any grievous sin, or 
who, like St. Augustine and St. Man- 
Magdalen, have made of their very sins 
stepping-stones to greater love, piety, and 
devotion. 

The confessional is the great means of 
correction, as the Blessed Eucharist is the 
greatest source of spiritual life and strength 



290 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

to the infirm soul. No one can expect to 
reach the higher and holier life of the 
soul without frequent reception of the Sac- 
rament of the Eucharist: "Amen, amen, 
I say unto you : Unless you eat the Flesh 
of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, 
you shall not have life in you." * How 
can those who are outside the Catholic 
Church, who have no altar, no sacrifice, no 
priesthood — how can they feed on the 
Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ ? 

It is sad, very sad, to think of how many 
blessings such poor souls have been de- 
prived, or rather robbed, by ancestors that 
cut themselves off from the source of uni- 
ty and life. Would that they could see 
the Catholic Church as she really is ; 
that they could cast aside the prejudices 
in which they have been unfortunately 

*St. John vi. 54. 



The Church Holy. 291 

reared, and behold -their true Mother in 
all the splendor of her spiritual beaut}*, for 
the chief "glory of the daughter of the 
King is from within " — Omnis gloria filia 
regis est ab intus — as the inspired Psalm- 
is: declares 



Zhe Cburcb Catboltc 




HE divine Word became incar- 
nate for our salvation. Wishing 
all- men to be saved and to ar- 
rive at the knowledge of truth, He like- 
wise desired and intended that the Church 
which He came upon earth to establish 
for the carrying-out of His most gracious 
design should be Catholic, or universal, in 
its character. " Go, teach all nations " was 
the command given to the apostles, and, 
through them, to their successors in office. 
This is the grand keynote of Catholicity 
— to teach all nations, to preach the Gos- 
pel to every tribe and race and people. 
All the children of men, no matter what 



292 



The Church Catholic. 293 

their race or color, dispositions or pecu- 
liarities, are invited to the nuptials of the 
Lamb slain from the beginning of the 
world. 

Catholicity, according to Christ's inten- 
tion, was to be as truly a mark of His 
Church as its wonderful unity — Catholic 
as to time and place, Catholic as to doc- 
trines, methods, and means, and Catholic 
in its most admirable adaptability to all 
persons, whether rich or poor, learned or 
illiterate, no matter in what age or clime 
they might live or under whatever form 
of government they might be placed. 

Going back through the long ages, we 
trace the history of our holy Church to 
Christ, its divine Founder. To this all 
testimonies of any value whatsoever point. 
On this all history, sacred and profane, 
must agree ; for if this one great fact be 



294 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

called into doubt, no event in the annals 
of the human race can be looked upon as 
certain. It is a fact that happened not in 
the dark or unknown to the world, and it 
so changed the face of the earth that it was 
impossible that its memory should have 
been forgotten or forced into oblivion. 

The Catholic Church was founded by 
Jesus Christ — the God Incarnate — on whose 
divine veracity it rests as on a most sure 
foundation. He promised, and promised 
solemnly, that He would be with it all 
days, even unto the consummation of the 
world ; that His Holy Spirit would always 
guide, enlighten, and direct it, and that 
not all the powers of hell would ever be 
able to prevail against it. It is not, then, 
the work or institution of man, but the 
special work or creation of God. It is, 
therefore, divine. 



The Church Catholic. 295 

Other religions — if religions they may be 
called — are the inventions of men, whose 
names they bear, and the time and place 
of whose institution we know full well. 
Arius, Eutyches, Nestorius, Pelagius, Lu- 
ther, Calvin, Henry VI I L, John Wesley, 
Swedenborg, Ann Lee, Joe Smith, and 
many others have founded churches ; in 
other words, have rashly attempted to im- 
prove on the work of the God-Man, and 
have signally failed, as all such must of 
necessity fail. 

Every one who sets out to establish a 
new church or to form a new creed ex- 
plicitly, or at least implicitly, starts with 
the assumption that Christ has failed to 
fulfil His most sacred promises. If the 
Church which He founded ever lapsed into 
error or heresy, if ever it corrupted the 
word of God or fell away — for even the 



296 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

shortest possible period of time — from the 
true faith "once delivered to the saints," 
then Christ was not the Son of God ; He 
was not a divinely-appointed messenger ; 
He was not and is not the Saviour of 
men ; He was not a holy man, but a great- 
er impostor than Mahomet. But if He 
were all that He represented Himself to 
be — and He certainly proved it beyond 
possibility of doubt by His miracles and 
prophecies — then the Catholic Church must 
stand for ever as the unfailing oracle of 
truth divine, the channel of grace and 
mercy, and the medium of salvation and 
sanctification unto all who will hear her 
voice and practise what she inculcates : 
44 My Spirit that is in thee, and My words 
that I have put in thy mouth, shall not 
depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the 
mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth 



The Church Catholic. 297 

of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from 
henceforth and for ever." * 

Isaias, the great prophet of God, clear- 
ly prophesied the rapid diffusion and Ca- 
tholicity of the Church : " The gentiles 
shall walk in thy light, and kings in the 
brightness of thy rising. Lift up thy eyes 
round about, and see ; all these are gath- 
ered together, they are come to thee ; thy 
sons shall come from afar, and thy daugh- 
ters shall rise up at thy side. Then shalt 
thou see and abound, and thy heart shall 
wonder and be enlarged, when the multi- 
tude of the sea shall be converted to thee, 
the strength of the gentiles shall come to 
thee/'f 

Other religions are merely national, like 
the Church of England and the Church 
of Russia, or are confined to one coun- 

* Isaias lix.. 21. % Id. lx. 3-5. 



298 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

try or race. "We see in the English 
Church/' says Cardinal Newman, " I will 
not merely say no descent from the first 
ages, and no relationship to the Church 
in other lands, but we see no body poli- 
tic of any kind ; we see nothing more or 
less than an Establishment, a department 
of government, or a function or operation 
of the state, without a substance — a mere 
collection of officials, depending on and 
living in the supreme civil power. Its 
unity and personality are gone, and with 
them its power of exciting feelings of 
any kind. ... Its fruits, as far as they 
are good, are to be made much of as 
long as they last, for they are transient 
and without succession ; its former cham- 
pions of orthodoxy are no earnest of or- 
thodoxy now ; they died, and there was 
no reason why they should be reproduced. 



The Church Catholic. 299 

Bishop is not like bishop, more than king 
is like king, or ministry like ministry ; its 
Prayer-Book is an act of Parliament of 
two centuries ago, and its cathedrals and 
its chapter-houses are the spoils of Catho- 
licism."* 

The true Church is and must necessari- 
ly be Catholic — not confined to one coun- 
try or to one age, but embracing all coun- 
tries and all ages. Heresy is found al- 
most everywhere, but not by any means 
the same heresy or the same peculiar form 
of heresy. It everywhere changes its co- 
lor, form, and even substance, while the 
* 

truth is one and unchangeable, and re- 
mains unaffected by the peculiarities of 
times or temperaments, and unaltered by 
the vicissitudes of kingdoms or empires. 
The Catholic Church is the most exten- 

, * Anglican Difficulties y p. 4. 



300 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

sive as well as the most lasting of em- 
pires. The greatest dominion ever held 
by any secular power, not even that once 
possessed by mighty pagan Rome, could 
bear comparison with that exercised by 
the Church Catholic, under the control of 
its Supreme Head on earth, the Vicegerent 
of Christ, who holds the keys of the 
kingdom of Heaven : " I will give thee 
the nations for thy inheritance, and thy 
dominion shall extend to the extremities 
of the earth/' St. Jerome remarked in 
reference to this text : " What becomes of 
the promises God made to His Son, that 
He would give Him all nations for His 
inheritance, if either the Church have per- 
ished or if it be shut up within the lim- 
its of an island ? " 

" Consider, I pray you," says the great 
St. Augustine, " under what folly the 



The Church Catfu 301 

heretics are laboring. They, cut off from 
union with the Church of Christ, hold 

and letting gt the whole, will act 

communicate with the whole world, over 
which the glory of Christ is spread But 
we Catholics are in every oatioi au- 

be- 
cause we communicate with every land 
wherein the glorv of Christ is spread. . . . 
1 Let people confess to Thee, O God I let 
all people confess to Thee 1 ' A heretic 
comes forward and says : ' I have people 
in Africa ' : and another, from some other 
quarter, says : ' And I have people in Ga- 
latia.' Thou hast them in Africa : he has 
them in Galatia : I seek for a man who 
has them everywhere. True, because vou 
rd, ' Let people confess to Thee, O 
God! 1 you dared to exult at the w<; 
Learn from the verse that follows that he 



302 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

speaks not of a part. Let all people 
confess to Thee. Walk in the way with 
all nations ; walk in the way with all peo- 
ples, ye children of peace, ye children of 
the one Catholic Church/' 

In his work against the Manicheans 
the same great doctor, speaking of the 
most sound wisdom of the Catholic 
Church, declares : " Many other things 
there are which keep me in her bosom. 
The agreement of peoples and of nations 
keeps me ; an authority begun with mira- 
cles, nourished with hope, increased with 
charity, strengthened by antiquity keeps 
me ; the succession of priests from the 
chair itself of the Apostle Peter — unto 
whom the Lord, after His resurrection, 
committed His sheep to be fed — down 
even to the present bishop keeps me ; 
finally, the name itself of the Catholic 



The Chitrch Catholic. 303 

Church keeps me — a name which, in the 
midst of so many heresies, this Church 
alone has, not without cause, so held pos- 
session of that, though all heretics would 
fain have themselves called Catholics, yet 
to the inquiry of any stranger, ' Where 
is the meeting of the Catholic Church 
held ? ' no heretic would dare to point 
out his own basilica or house. ,, Many of 
those outside the Catholic Church in this 
the nineteenth century of the Christian 
era seem as envious of the name of Ca- 
tholic as the heretics of the fourth or 
fifth century. In the convention of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church held in Phil- 
adelphia in the month of October, 1883, 
there was quite an effort made to substi- 
tute for the name "Protestant Episcopal" 
that of " Holy Catholic " ; but knowing full 
well that they had no right to a name 



304 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

they rejected more than three hundred 
years ago, they had the good sense to 
vote down the proposition by a vote of 
two hundred and fifty-two nays to twen- 
ty-one yeas. " The Catholicism of the 
Church," says the distinguished Protestant 
Bishop Pearson in his Exposition of the 
Creed, " consisteth in universality, as em- 
bracing all sorts of persons, as dissemi- 
nated through all nations, and as compre- 
hending all ages. The Church of Christ, 
in its primary institution, was made of a 
diffusive nature, to spread itself to all 
parts and corners of the earth." St. Ig- 
natius, bishop and martyr, who lived so 
close to the time of the apostles as to be 
almost their contemporary, says in his let- 
ter to the church of Smyrna : " Christ is 
where the Catholic Church is." 

The mandate of the Saviour, "Go, 



The Church Catholic. 305 

teach all nations," has not been a fruit- 
less one. This commission to the apos- 
tles, which has resounded throughout the 
world and penetrated every corner of the 
earth, has not been without its message 
of peace and its message of truth. The 
voices of the first apostles were heard in 
many a clime and distant nation during 
their lifetime, so that it was said with 
truth : Exivit somes corum— -Their sound 
hath gone forth unto the very extremities 
of the earth. They went forth conquering 
and to conquer. Possessed of no worldly 
influence, rejoicing not in great talents or 
deep learning, supported by no secular 
power, no obstacles could deter them, 
no dangers appall, no sacrifices howsoever 
great could intimidate them or check the 
onward march of the Gospel and the con- 
sequent diffusion of our holy Church. So 



a 



06 The Keys of the Kingdom. 



lderful was the success of the apostles 
and their immediate successors that 

as the second century Tertullian was 
able to declare to the world: "We are a 
people of yesterday, and vet we have filled 
every place belonging to you — cities, isl- 
ands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very 
camp, your tribes, companies, palace, sen- 
ate, forum ! We leave you only your 
temples." 

What earthly empire, since the world 

an, ever made such conquests ? What 

I lorn or dynasty can show such anti- 
quity or give such promise of longevity ? 
As Macaulay well said : u No other insti- 
ll is left standing which carries the 
mind back to the times when the smoke 
of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon and 
when camelopards and tigers bounded in 
the Flavian Amphitheatre. The proudest 



The Church Catholic. 307 



royal h ire but of yesterday when 

compared with the line of the Suprc 
Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an un- 
broken series from the pope who crowned 
Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the 
pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; 
and far beyond the time of Pepin the 
august dynasty extends. The republic of 
Venice came next in antiquity. But the 
republic of Venice was modern when 
compared with the Papacy ; and the repub- 
lic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy re- 
mains. The Papacy remains, not in de- 
cay, not a mere antique, but full of life 
and youthful vigor. The Catholic Church 
is still sending forth to the farthest ends 
of the world missionaries as zealous as 
those who landed in Kent with Augus- 
tine, and still confronting kings with the 
same spirit with which she confronted At- 



308 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

tila. The number of her children is great- 
er than in any former age. Her acquisi- 
tions in the New World have more than 
compensated what she has lost in the 
Old." 

We may well be proud of such a glo- 
rious ancestry, to which even the bitter- 
est enemies of our Church pay reverence 
and tribute. That ancestry dates back to 
Jesus Christ and His apostles. 

The Catholicity of the Church is im- 
posing in grandeur and sublimity, embrac- 
ing then, as it does, all times and the 
most distant nations, tribes, and peoples 
who differ in all things else — race and 
color, national customs, personal habits, 
local fashions and prejudices — and yet all 
agree as to the main points, the profes- 
sion of the same religious doctrines, wor- 
ship at the same altar, and yield obedi- 



The Church Catholic. 309 

ence to the same divinely-appointed head. 

Thus is Malachy's prophecy fulfilled: 4, For 
from the rising of the sun even to the 
going down My Name is great among 
the gentiles ; and in every place there is 

.red to My Name a clean oblation, for 
My Name is great among the gentiles, 
saith the Lord of Hosts." * 

It showed itself to be the Catholic 
Church even from the beginning, not only 
in name but also in reality. It was un- 
limited by any border or territory. It 
claimed as its proper field the whole earth 
as the inheritance of Christ, and hence age 
after age it has brought nation after na- 
tion, tribe upon tribe, into its all-embrac- 
ing fold. Even during the lifetime of the 
apostles so quickly did the faith spread 
that St. Paul could, in all truth, declare 

. ii. 



310 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

to the Romans that their faith was spoken 
of throughout the world. 

What wonders followed the preaching of 
the Gospel ! — preached, too, by men not 
gifted with human eloquence nor remark- 
able for the possession of any great ac- 
quirements. " Behold what follows," says 
Cardinal Rauscher : " The Jew, proud of 
his title of son of Abraham and Moses, 
and looking forward to the earthly reign 
of the Messias, humbles himself and puts 
aside his ambitious hopes ; the Greek for- 
sakes the splendid colonnades of the Porch 
and the pleasant shades of the Academy, 
and becomes a disciple of the Galilean ; 
the Roman forgets the glories of his proud 
Capitol, and bows in reverence to the 
Cross; and the pagan abandons his idols 
and cheerfully embraces a life of self-re- 
straint, patience, and penance. From East 



The Church Catholic. 3 1 1 

to West, from Ctesiphon, beyond the Eu- 
phrates, to Rome, all are become one people." 

After the apostles had closed their earth- 
ly career the holy bishops who succeeded 
to their power and authority carried on 
the great work, and the Church began 
to spread rapidly over the face of the 
earth. For example, St. Gregory Thauma- 
turgus — the miracle-worker, as he was call- 
ed — when he took charge of his episco- 
pal see, about the middle of the third 
century, could discover only seventeen 
Christians within the limits of his jurisdic- 
tion ; yet when he was dying he had the 
consolation of knowing that he left only 
that small number of unbelievers in that 
same territory, the most of the inhabitants 
of which he had made captive to Christ. 

At the close of the third century there 
were flourishing churches not only in 



312 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Greece and Rome, but also in Africa and 
Asia. That Catholicity began to spread 
rapidly in Spain at an early date is evi- 
dent from the fact that nineteen bishops 
were present at the Synod of Elvira, a.d. 
306. Churches were established at Paris, 
Tours, Toulouse, and other principal towns 
in Gaul about the middle of the third 
century, principally through the efforts of 
Pope Fabian. Several of these churches 
claim an earlier origin, as is evident from 
the writings of St. Irenaeus, Bishop of 
Lyons, in the second century, who appeals 
to the teachings of the churches of Gaul 
and Belgium against the heretics who dis- 
turbed the Church in his time. 

The Abbe Faillon claims, on good 
ground, that Denys, the first bishop of 
Paris, was sent into Gaul by St. Clement 
who occupied the chair of Peter from 



The Church Catholic. 313 

a.d. 91-10 1, and that St. Lazarus, whom 
Christ raised from the dead, became the 
first bishop of Marseilles. St. Irenaeus de- 
clared that Catholicity had penetrated, in 
his time, the " two Germanies," as he 
termed them, and it is certain that in 
the third century there were bishoprics 
at Metz, Cologne, and Treves. " Every- 
where/' says Tertullian, " are to be found 
the disciples of the Crucified — among the 
Parthians and Medes, the Elamites and 
Mesopotamians ; in Armenia and Phrygia, 
Cappadocia and Pontus, Asia Minor, Syria, 
and Cyrene, mingled with the various 
tribes of the Getuli and Moors in Gaul 
and Spain, Britain and Germany." 

In the fourth century the Ethiopians, 
and to a great extent the Goths, became 
willing captives of the Cross, while in the 
fifth century the' great St. Patrick, by com- 



314 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

mission of Pope Celestine, the successor of 
St. Peter, took possession of the Green Isle 
and brought the entire people to the Ca- 
tholic faith, and established it so firmly 
that no amount of persecution has ever 
been able to eradicate it from their noble 
hearts. It was a bloodless victory, one al- 
together unique in the history of the hu- 
man race, accomplished without the blood 
of martyrs, and there is no record of a 
more complete or more glorious conquest 
in the annals of the Christian Church. 
In the sixth age, although the Gospel had 
been preached there at an earlier date, 
England was brought to the true faith 
by St. Augustine and his companions, who 
were sent from Rome by St. Gregory the 
Great. In the same century and the age 
following the Netherlands and a consid- 
erable part of Germany bowed to the 



The Church Catholic. 315 

Christian yoke, while St. Columba, the 
famous Irish monk and apostle, evangel- 
ized Sweden. Then followed the Hes- 
sians, the Thuringians, the Saxons, and 
the Bohemians — all coming to worship at 
the same altar. In the ninth century St. 
Cyril and St. Methodius, sent by Pope 
Adrian II., converted the Sclavonians, 
Moravians, and Bohemians. In the next 
century Poland was converted by St. 
Adalbert, Denmark by St. Poppo, Sweden 
by St. Sigefrid, and Lesser Russia by St. 
Bruno and St. Boniface. 

Hungary was brought to the faith in 
the eleventh century, the Livonians and 
Icelanders in the twelfth, several tribes of 
Tartars by the Franciscans in the thir- 
teenth, Lithuania in the fourteenth (Odo- 
ric himself converting twenty thousand 
persons), the kingdoms of Congo and An- 



3 1 6 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

gola, besides large districts in Africa and 
Asia, in the fifteenth. Millions were 
brought over by St. Francis Xavier in 
the Indies, and in Mexico and Brazil by 
St. Louis Bertrand, Fathers Anchieta and 
Las Casas, in the sixteenth ; Peru, Chili, 
Canada, and Louisiana in the seventeenth ; 
and a lar.ge multitude in China in the be- 
ginning of the eighteenth century. 

This apostolic work — the dearest to the 
heart of Jesus — still goes on, for the Church 
in our own times continues to send as of 
yore holy and intrepid missionaries to every 
corner of the habitable globe, bringing the 
glad tidings of Redemption unto every 
race and tribe and people : " How beauti- 
ful are the feet of them that preach the 
Gospel of peace, of them that bring glad 
tidings of good things." * 

* Romans x. 15. 



The Church Catholic. 317 

Even now, notwithstanding the persecu- 
tion of centuries and the opposition of ene- 
mies innumerable, the tyranny of kings and 
parliaments, the plottings of secret socie- 
ties the dissemination of bad literature, 
Catholic Church holds its own against 
the world and is twice more numerous than 
all the different Protestant sects or denomi- 
nations combined. It is the religion of 
entire nations, such as France and Spain, 
Portugal and Italy, Belgium, Ireland, and 
Poland, the majority of the inhabitants of 
Austria, whilst no small proportion of the 
people of Germany, England, Scotland, 
Canada, and Australia are adherents of the 
Catholic Church. In the two Americas 
there are one hundred and eighty bishop- 
rics and fifty-five millions of Catholics. 

In the United States, where a hundred 
years ago we had no bishop and but a 



5 i S The Keys of the Kingdom. 

few priests, we now count fourteen 
archbishops, sixty-three bishops, over Sc 
thousand priests, seven thousand five hun- 
dred and thirty-three churches and chapels, 
eighty-three colleges, thirty-five seminaries, 
two hundred and seventy-two asylums, one 
hundred and fifty-four hospitals, five hun- 
dred and eighty-one academies, about twen- 
ty-five hundred parochial schools with half 
a million of pupils in attendance, a very 
large number of convents and monas- 
teries, and an estimated Catholic popula- 
tion of more than nine millions. 

The Catholic Church has gained a won- 
derful foothold in Australia, and it is rap- 
idly growing in influence in the East, at 
Constantinople, in Syria, Armenia, Persia, 
Arabia, Egypt, Xubia, and aia It 

read c ropean an; Asiatic Tur- 

having s : episcopal sees, ele- 



The Church Catholic. 319 

ven vicariates, two apostolic prefectures, 
and nearly a million of Catholics. It pos- 
sesses at least twenty-two apostolic vicari- 
ates in China and nearly seven hundred 
native and European priests. 

In Africa there is a cardinal archbishop 
and a number of suffragan bishops. In 
India there are this year (1885) twenty-five 
bishops, twelve hundred priests, six hun- 
dred monks and nuns, and one million two 
hundred thousand members of our Church. 

Its noble missionaries still go forth, as 
the apostles of old, far away from home 
and country, sundering every human tie, 
braving every danger, crossing perilous 
seas, entering wild forests, facing disease 
and death, penetrating the very heart of 
pagan countries, carrying no arms but the 
Cross, relying on no power but that of 
God, vowing themselves to poverty and 



: : : Thz Keys of the Kingdom* 

i±:iz\z ::: :/.t fdke :: ::. : r r :' ; : ; :;~ 
7 nr.r. iiri 

It is no wonder, then, that God blesses 
their labors and accepts their sacrifices. 
7.7 :\::\z ^::ei \~'z ~:..~ z: : .ssi:z. 11: 
;-:_5 :..::.::_ :::~; ::. r 77/- -77. :_:7 :: 
zeal piety, disinterestedness, and home 
deTotednesSy are able to bring" tribes and 
:7.;7: :; -_:_- true ::.::.. 7:: i: .i .1 :7:: 
patent to all that no Protestant sect has 
-"-: ::: i:*r :: 1: ; : :.v: 77~ :ie :;r_vr> 
aon of even one raceu Let any one who 
doubts this statement consult the learned 
and exhaustive work of Dr. Marshall on 
the History of Christian Missions ; and he 
"':.'. : 7:7 7:: -77 :V:: :: : .v. ::: :r?:> 
:.".::.::: : :' 7.f: :_.:.:. 7.; r:\-.-r. :.: ; :r.i: 
:;.7 riiff :75 .. .:. ..7--;./. 7 /. " ::.: ?jr.\ii 
5 r ; : f in ^i.Z7:77~: -:■::. :: :nr ::7i hive 
' ::;. ::ni".r:e 7-n.::7f. ;7 :u::rf r.rvtn 



The Church Catholic. 321 

♦ 
hundred writers, of whom nine hundred 

and forty-seven are Protestants, and many 
of these the missionary representatives of 
the different denominations. As Washing- 
ton Irving declared, Catholic missionaries 
labored "with a power that no other 
Christians have exhibited." 

"Not only," says Dr. Marshall, "is the 
Catholic Church defending at this hour 
the Scriptures, the Incarnation, and the 
whole blessed Gospel against the ribald as- 
saults of the ' reformed ' communities, but 
her missions to the heathen, as her worst 
enemies confess, are still, both in their 
agents and their results, absolutely identi- 
cal with those which subdued the Roman 
Empire to the law of Christ, and carried 
the Cross in triumph from Jerusalem to 
Rome and Constantinople, and from the 
shores of the Euphrates and the Nile to 



322 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

♦ 
the forests of Scandinavia and the isles of 

Britain. Nay, more, the work which she 
has accomplished during the last three 
centuries, beginning from the very date of 
the so-called Reformation, actually surpass- 
es all which she had done in earlier ages, 
even in those which witnessed her first 
combats with the power of evil."* 

Catholic, or universal, as to time and 
place, the Church is Catholic also as to 
doctrines, teaching the same in every age, 
holding up the same invariable standard 
of truth and morals to every generation of 
men. She is Catholic also as to her adap- 
tability to suit the requirements of every 
age, and, without the compromise of any 
of her well-established principles, she accom- 
modates herself to the wants and desires 
of every people. 

* Christian Missions, vol. ii. p. 405. 



The Church Catholic. 323 

Being the only divinely-authorized chan- 
nel of communication between man and 
God, she speaks with the voice of authori- 
ty to all men without distinction of race, 
culture, or position. To the high in sta- 
tion as to those in the humbler walks in 
life, to the deeply-learned philosopher as 
well as to the unlettered peasant, to the 
king as to the beggar, she bears the same 
heavenly message, imposes the same obli- 
gations, holds up the same high standard 
of morality and the same system of divine 
truth. 

With godlike kindness she stoops to 
the lowly, is condescending with the sim- 
ple, tender and compassionate to the poor, 
and brings the proud and haughty in hu- 
mility to her feet. In one word, she 
makes herself all to all, that she may gain 
all to Christ and bring them all safely 



324 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

into the one true fold under the one true 
Shepherd of their immortal souls. 

Go back through the centuries; vou will 
find the same Catholic Church existing in 
every age until you mount to its source 
or origin — Christ Jesus, our Lord. It has 
no other history, it is built upon no other 
foundation, it has no other founder. If 
instituted by man, whether pope or bish- 
op, priest or layman, king or philosopher, 
who was he, where did he live, when did 
he flourish ? As no more important event 
ever took place, there ought certainly to 
be some record of it. We know the his- 
tory of every kingdom or dynasty ; we 
know the names of the originators of 
every new heresy or schism ; we can trace 
even their simplest variation ; we know the 
names of the founders of the different 
sects, even of those considered the most 



The Church Catholic. . 325 

insignificant ; if, then, the Catholic Church 
has not Christ for its founder, who then 
founded it, when and where ? Surely an 
event of such magnitude, having such im- 
portant consequences for the human race, 
such remarkable influence on their tempo- 
ral and eternal destinies, could not have 
taken place unknown to the world, could 
not possibly have occurred in the dark or 
been sprung upon mankind without some 
remarkable revolution in the minds of 
men. And yet, strange to say, not even 
our bitterest opponents can name any 
other author or founder, or determine 
upon any other time and place, than what 
we claim and always have claimed. 

Moreover, when we consider that this 
same Catholic religion which we profess is 
not one that would attract the merely na- 
tural man, but, on the contrary, repel him 



o 



26 The Keys of the Kingdom. 



by reason of its deep mysteries, its incom- 
parably high moral code, and the many 
severe checks and restraints it places on 
every human passion, no mere man nor 
body of men could ever have been able 
to impose it on men and convince them 
that it was born of God and was fortified 
bv His divine sanction. 

In every age of the Christian era the 
best and noblest and most learned of men 
have admitted its divine origin, have ac- 
cepted its teaching as the teaching of 
God, and have bowed down their intel- 
lects to its system of truth and subjected 
their wills to its code of laws. Thus it 
stands and shall stand for ever, until time 
shall be absorbed in eternity, the mouth- 
piece of the Incarnate God, the infallible 
interpreter of His revelation, the living 
organ of the Holy Ghost. 



Zhc Cburcb Bpostolic 




|UR Blessed Saviour declared Him- 
self to be u the way, the truth, 
the life." He came to earth to 
point out the way, to make known the 
truth, to secure to us everlasting life. As 
His stay here below was to be short, He 
wished to organize a body which would 
surely carry out His most beneficent de- 
signs in man's regard. With this end in 
view He established a society distinct, de- 
finite, founded on clearly laid down prin- 
ciples, and governed by certain well-defined 
laws. This society or Church He intended 
not merelv for the benefit of His contem- 
poraries, but fof succeeding generations 

3 3 7 



328 The Keys of the Kingdom: 

of men. How long did He destine it to 
last ? During all time — as long as there 
would be a human soul to be saved : " Be- 
hold, I am with you all days, even unto 
the consummation of the world." 

Being all-wise, He must necessarily have 
selected the means suitable for the carry- 
ing-out of His holy purpose. Being all- 
powerful, He must necessarily have chosen 
such means as would infallibly secure the 
end He had in view. As He desired the 
salvation of men, so He chose the minis- 
try of men to co-operate with Him in 
His divine work. In the Church, there- 
fore, which He established He constituted 
a ministry — a ministry to teach, to guide, 
to govern, and direct. Being instituted 
by Him, this ministry is divine. 

This mission and ministry He confid- 
ed to His apostles, whose commission is 



The Church Apostolic. 329 

couched in very clear terms : " And Jesus 
coming, spoke to them, saying : All power 
is given to Me in heaven and on earth. 
Going therefore teach ye all nations ; bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
teaching them to observe all things what- 
soever I have commanded you ; and be- 
hold I am with you all days, even to the 
consummation of the world."* 

The mission He gave to them was simi- 
lar in its nature and in its power to the 
one He Himself received from His Hea- 
venly Father: "As the Father hath sent 
Me, I also send you. " f Whatsoever 
they should do in His name, fortified as 
they were by His authority, would be 
ratified in the highest heavens : " What- 
soever you shall bind upon earth shall be 

* St. Matt, xxviii. 18-20. \ St. John xx. 21. 



: : : - '. 11 r : :/ :! 11: .:".-;. 

:_:.: --l.w in ';.-:: tz mi -"Li:.v-t"T_- ""-'- 
:;.:,.. ..: : 7 --.;•:' t:.-;. 5;:... :- 7.«:vr: :_m 
in heaveo."* 

Ht t:.::-_:t: :;-:-. ~ :: z;>il'£t :■-.-'■ 
as: "Whose sins too shall forgive, they 
are fragnren than; and whose sins joa 
lz.ll mim iLty irt 7tzi:r.~i_' A 

Who was to be their support, what 
their reliance? ~ Behold I am with yoo 
all daj - Christ the Lord. Who 

lirh:rr ::.-::.■. : . ' -. >t~: ;;_ :_".:::tr 
lirrlrrr : 7 Irrf irrf: :ie H:> S;:r:: 
who will teach too all troth and abide 
with too for ever/' * Who was to be the 
;t:::t :: :_: ; r~~ trt >:c: :: _n;;r. 
and the source of jurisdiction for this 
: ~ - - - -: '.'. ':. ~ _ ;. . : " - 7 . " .. 'rr. r .-: 



: 



The Church Af: 331 

[or a rock], and on this rock I will build 
My Church." Was there any danger it 
should ever fail, or reach error, or become 

corrupt in doctrine or in morals? "The 
gates of hell shall never prevail agai 

it." Who was appointed to feed the 
whole flock, the sheep as well as the 
lambs, to watch over the shepherds of 
the different portions of the one fold, to 
confirm the wavering, to strengthen the 
weak, to warn the wayward ? None other 
than he to whom the Lord said : ,( Feed 
my lambs, feed my sheep."* None other 
than the chief of the apostles, to whom 
Christ addressed these remarkable words : 
" Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath de- 
sired to have you that he may sift you 
as wheat. But I have prayed for thee 
that thy faith fail not ; and thou, being 

* St John xxi. 15-17. 



33 2 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

once converted, confirm thy brethren." * 
To that very same Peter, and through 
him to his successors, the Lord gave even 
the very "keys of the kingdom of hea- 
ven." To him alone, among all the apos- 
tles, was this said. The successor of St. 
Peter, and he alone, rejoices in the pos- 
session of this wonderful prerogative, is 
blessed with such godlike powers. 

What claim have the apostles and their 
successors on man's obedience? "He that 
hears you hears Me." " He that will not 
hear the Church, let him be to thee as 
the heathen and the publican." 

So we cannot but perceive that there is 
not an important question that can possi- 
bly be asked with regard to the organiza- 
tion of the Church and its ministry, and 
the chief plan of its government, that is 

*St. Luke xxii. 31, £2. 



The Church Apostolic. 333 

not clearly answered by Jesus Christ Him- 
self and in His own divine words. 

Christ then gave a mission to His 
apostles, as He Himself received a mis- 
sion from His Father in heaven. As 
their mission was to teach all nations and 
all generations of men, and as they per- 
sonally could not visit and convert all 
tribes and peoples, and remain upon earth 
until the consummation of ages, their mis- 
sion was not to end with their mortal 
life, but was to continue in their official 
successors, who were to enjoy the same 
powers of teaching, governing, feeding the 
flock of Christ, and of building up His 
Mystical Body, which is His Church. 
There then exists, and must necessarily 
exist, an apostolic mission and ministry 
which are to last for all time. 

The belief in the necessity of an apos- 



334 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

tolic mission and ministry is coeval with 
Christianity. In the very beginning, after 
the Ascension of Christ, the apostles as- 
sembled under the direction of St. Peter, 
their chief, who addressed them on the 
occasion and spoke of the need of choos- 
ing one " to take the place of this min- 
istry and apostleship from which judas 
hath by transgression fallen." After con- 
sulting with God in fervent prayer "the 
lot fell upon Matthias, and he was num- 
bered with the eleven apostles."* 

St. Peter first established himself at 
Antioch, and, after a few years, finally 
established his seat at Rome, the capital 
of the world. To deny that St. Peter, 
the first pope, fixed his see at Rome, re- 
sided there many years, and finally suf- 
fered martyrdom in that city would be 

* Acts of the Apostles i. 26. 



The Church Apostolic. 335 

just as senseless as to deny that Wash- 
ington was the first President of the 
United States. " The mass of learned 
Protestants," says the learned Archdeacon 
Farrar, " Scaliger, Casaubon, Grotius, Ush- 
er, Bramhall, Pearson, Cave, Schrockh, 
Gieseler, Bleek, Olshausen, Wieseler, Hil- 
genfeld, etc., to a greater or less degree, 
admit his (Peters) martyrdom or residence 
at Rome."* 

St. Peter consecrated St. Mark bishop of 
Alexandria, the chief city of Africa. St. 
Paul most assuredly received an extraor- 
dinary mission from heaven, yet he did not 
assume the apostleship until after his ordi- 
nation and consecration : " There were in 
the church which was at Antioch, proph- 
ets and doctors, among whom was Barna- 
bas, and Simon who was called Niger, and 

* Early Days of Christianity, Appendix, p. 595. 



336 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Lucius of Cyrene, and Manahen, who was 
the foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, 
and Saul. And as they were ministering 
to the Lord, and fasting, the Holy Ghost 
said to them : Separate me Saul and Bar- 
nabas for the work whereunto I have 
taken them. Then they, fasting and pray- 
ing, and imposing their hands upon them, 
sent them away. So they, being sent by 
the Holy Ghost, went to Seleucia, and 
from thence they sailed to Cyprus." * 

St. Paul consecrated Timothy bishop of 
Ephesus and Titus bishop of Crete. St. 
Clement (pope a.d. 100), in his epistle 
to the Corinthians, says : " God has sent 
Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ has sent 
His apostles. These faithful ministers, 
having received the command from the 
mouth of their Divine Master, went every- 

* Acts xiii. 1-5. 



The Church Apostolic. 337 

where to announce the kingdom of God ; 
and, preaching thus in the country and in 
the cities, they chose the first-fruits of the 
new-born churches, and, having tried them 
by the li^ht of the Holv Ghost with which 
they were filled, they established these men 
bishops and deacons over those who were 
to believe in the Gospel, and they ordered 
that after their death others equally tried 
should succeed to their ministry." 

An heir to the throne must prove his 
genealogy, and surely none can show a 
clearer title than the successors of St. Pe- 
ter. Our present Pope, Leo XIII., now 
happily reigning (whom may God long 
preserve !), is the two hundred and fifty- 
eighth pope in direct succession from the 
blessed chief of the apostles. St. Irenaeus, 
who lived in the age following that of the 
apostles, gives us a catalogue of the sue- 



338 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

cessors of St. Peter to a.d. 177. "We can 
count up/' he says, " those who were ap- 
pointed bishops in the churches of the 
apostles and their successors down to 
us. . . . But as it would be tedious to 
enumerate the succession of bishops in 
the different churches, we refer you to 
the tradition of that greatest, most ancient, 
and universally known Church founded at 
Rome by St. Peter and St. Paul, and 
which has been preserved there, through 
the succession of its bishops, down to the 
present time. ,, He then gives the names 
of all the popes from St. Peter to Eleu- 
therius, the pope then reigning. The next 
list is furnished us by Tertullian ; the third 
by St. Optatus to the reign of Pope Siri- 
cius, a.d. 384 ; and St. Augustine gives us 
a list down to Pope Innocent I., a.d. 402. 
And thus we can trace from one age to 



The Church Apostolic. 339 

another until we reach the Chief Pontiff 
of our own day. " If an angel from 
heaven should say to you," writes the 
great St. Augustine to one of the Dona- 
tist schismatics, " ' Leave the Christianity of 
the universe and hold to that of the party 
of Donatus,' he ought to be anathema, 
because he would attempt to cut thee off 
from the whole, and to alienate thee from 
the promises of God, and to push thee 
down into a party. For if the order of 
bishops succeeding to each other is to be 
considered, how much more securely, and 
really beneficially, do we reckon from 
Peter himself, to whom, as personating 
the Church, the Lord says : Upo7i this rock 
I will btiild My Church, and the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it. For to 
Peter succeeded Linus ; to Linus, Clement ; 
to Clement, Anacletus ; to Anacletus, Eva- 



340 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

ristus." And the great doctor goes on to 
enumerate the succession of Roman pon- 
tiffs down to his own time, concluding 
with these words : " In this order of suc- 
cession no Donatist bishop appears." 

As the Church cannot exist without pas- 
tors, so there can be no true pastors with- 
out mission and jurisdiction. For a valid 
ministry are required not only true orders 
or valid consecration, but also a true mis- 
sion, or " the being sent " by proper au- 
thority, and jurisdiction, or the charge of 
souls. A mission must be either ordinary 
or extraordinary. To be ordinary it must 
come through the usual channels of Church 
authority. If extraordinary, it must be 
proved by indubitable miracles. 

Christ had an extraordinary mission, and 
He proved it beyond possibility of doubt 
by the most wonderful display of almighty 



The Church Apostolic. 341 

power, by His miracles and prophecies. 
11 If I had not done among them the works 
that no other man hath done, they would 
not have sin," * said the Lord of the un- 
believing Jews. 

The apostles, as we have seen, received 
their mission directly from Christ : 4 * As 
the Father hath sent Me, I also send 
you." They in turn selected others to 
carry on the divine work, for " neither 
doth any man take the honor to himself 
but he that is called by God, as Aaron 
was." f 

Whence did Luther, Calvin, and the 
other so-called Reformers derive their mis- 
sion ? Not, certainly, through the ordinary 
channels appointed by Christ — from Peter 
and his successors. Certainly not from 
the Catholic t Church, which lopped off 

* St. John xv. 24. f Heb. v. 4. 



342 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

these branches from the parent tree ; not 
from that Church which excommunicated 
them, deprived them of their priestly facul- 
ties, took away their mission and jurisdic- 
tion. Not from the people, who are the 
sources of the civil power but not of the 
spiritual. The Protestant divine Dr. Hook- 
er admitted that the ministry derives its 
authority " in a very different manner from 
that of princes and magistrates, ,, and he 
moreover declared that it is "a wretched 
blindness not to admire so great a power 
as that which the clergy are endowed with, 
or to suppose that any but God can be- 
stow it." 

Their mission was not an extraordinary 
one, since they were not able to confirm 
it by miracles. Erasmus, a contemporary 
of Luther and the greatest scholar of his 
age, speaking on this subject, said that all 



The Church Apostolic. 343 

the Reformers together " could not cure a 
lame horse/' 

The chiefs of the Protestant sects, such 
as Luther, Calvin, and their associates, were 
not bishops, therefore they could not or- 
dain, and could not consequently establish 
a succession. Even if they had been 
bishops a mere material succession would 
not suffice. Valid orders would not be 
sufficient without mission and jurisdiction. 
The different heretics who left the Catho- 
lic Church from the fourth to the ninth 
century had valid orders, and the Church 
never disputed them, nor does she now 
with regard to the Eastern heretics and 
schismatics ; but they are without jurisdic- 
tion. They are not recognized by that 
supreme pastor whom Christ appointed to 
feed both sheep and lambs ; they have re- 
ceived no commission from him upon 



344 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

whom Christ built His Church, who holds 
" the keys of the kingdom of heaven/ ' 
who has the supreme power of binding 
and loosing, and who was divinely ap- 
pointed to be the confirmer of his breth- 
ren in the faith, and whose own faith is 
never to fail. 

This primacy of honor, dignity, and ju- 
risdiction was acknowledged in every age 
of the Christian Church, being solidly 
founded on Sacred Scripture and apostolic 
tradition. In referring to the apostles the 
inspired writers of the New Testament al- 
ways mention St. Peter first. He was the 
first of that holy band to whom our Sa- 
viour appeared after His Resurrection. He 
presided at the election of Matthias, he 
worked the first miracle in the name of 
Christ, he was the first to preach to the 
Jews and the first to call the Gentiles to 



The Church Apostolic. 345 

the faith. He is the rock on which Christ 
built His Church, and to him was con- 
fided the care of the shepherds as well as 
of the sheep of the entire flock. To him 
alone, as we have said before, was given 
the plenitude of power and jurisdiction in 
the universal Church, and he alone holds 
the very keys of the kingdom. 

Even in the earliest ages the successors 
of St. Peter exercised this power over the 
universal Church, and exercised jurisdiction 
in churches far removed from Rome — as, 
for example, Pope Clement over the 
church of Corinth, Pope Victor over 
that of Ephesus, and Pope Stephen over 
the church of Africa. No council has 
ever been deemed oecumenical without 
their approval, and at their feet all ap- 
peals have been uniformly laid. The most 
learned Protestants, such as Leibnitz, Gro- 



346 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

tius, and Melanchthon, were willing to ac- 
knowledge "a primacy of order, dignity, 
and direction over the universal Church " 
in the see of Rome, and to honor and 
respect the pope as "supreme patriarch 
and chief bishop of the Catholic Church." 
The great Leibnitz, in his Sy sterna 
Theologtcum, gave utterance to very Ca- 
tholic sentiments on this important sub- 
ject : " To the hierarchy of pastors of the 
Church belong not only priesthood and 
its preparatory grades, but also episcopacy, 
and even the primacy of the Sovereign 
Pontiff, all of which we must believe to 
be of divine right. As priests are ordain- 
ed by a bishop, the bishop, and especially 
that bishop to whom the care of the 
entire Church is committed, has power 
to moderate and limit the office of the 
priest, so that in certain cases he is re- 



The Church Apostolic. 347 

strained from exercising the power of the 
keys, not only lawfully, but even validly. 
Moreover, the bishop, and especially the 
bishop who is called oecumenical and who 
represents the entire Church, has the 
power of excommunicating, and depriving 
of the grace of the sacraments, of bind- 
ing and retaining sins, of loosing and re- 
storing again. For it is not merely that 
voluntary jurisdiction which belongs to 
the priest in the confessional that is con- 
tained under the power of the keys, but 
the Church, moreover, has power to pro- 
ceed against the unwilling ; and he who 
' does not hear the Church ' and does not 
keep her commandments ' should be held 
as the heathen and the publican ' ; and as 
the sentence on earth is regularly con- 
firmed by that of Heaven, such a man 
draws on himself, at the peril of his own 



348 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

soul, the weight of ecclesiastical authority, 
to which God Himself lends that which 
is last and highest in all jurisdiction — exe- 
cution. . . . 

" Since, therefore, our merciful and sove- 
reign God has established His Church 
on earth as a sacred ' city placed upon a 
mountain/ His immaculate spouse and 
the interpreter of His will, and has so 
earnestly commended the universal main- 
tenance of her unity in the bonds of 
love, and has commanded that she should 
be heard by all who would not be es- 
teemed 'as the heathen and the publican/ 
it follows that He must have appointed 
some mode by which the will of the 
Church, the interpreter of the divine will, 
could be known. What this mode is was 
pointed out by the apostles, who in the 
beginning represented the body of the 



The Church Apostolic. 349 

Church. For at the council which was 
held in Jerusalem, in explaining their 
opinion, they use the words, ' It hath 
seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to 
us/ Nor did this privilege of the assist- 
ance of the Holy Ghost cease in the 
Church with the death of the apostles ; 
it is to endure to 'the consummation of 
the world/ and has been propagated 
throughout the whole body of the Church 
by the bishops as the successors of the 
apostles. Now, as, from the impossibility 
of the bishops frequently leaving the peo- 
ple over whom they are placed, it is not 
possible to hold a council continually, or 
even frequently, while at the same time 
the person of the Church must always 
live and subsist in order that its will 
may be ascertained, it was a necessary 
consequence, by the divine law itself, 



350 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

insinuated in Christ's most memorable 
words to Peter (when He committed to 
him especially the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven), as well as when He thrice 
emphatically commanded him to 'feed His 
sheep/ and uniformly believed in the 
Church, that one among the apostles, 
and the successor of this one among 
the bishops, was invested with pre-emi- 
nent power, in order that by him, as 
the visible centre of unity, the body of 
the Church might be bound together; the 
common necessities be provided for ; a 
council, if necessary, be convoked, direct- 
ed ; and that in the interval between 
councils provision might be made lest the 
commonwealth of the faithful sustain any 
injury. And as the ancients unanimously 
attest that the Apostle Peter governed 
the Church, suffered martyrdom, and ap- 



The Church Apostolic. 351 

pointed his successor, in the city of Rome, 
the capital of the world ; and as no other 
bishop has ever been recognized under 
this relation, we justly acknowledge the 
Bishop of Rome to be the chief of all 
the rest. This at least, therefore, must 
be held as certain : that in all things 
which do not admit the delay necessary 
for the convocation of a general council, 
the power of the chief of the bishops, or 
Sovereign Pontiff, is, during the interval, 
the same as that of the whole Church. 
We are to obey the Sovereign Pontiff as 
the only vicar of God on earth/' This is 
surely a most remarkable declaration, com- 
ing, as it does, from a non-Catholic source. 
No church not in communion with the 
see of Peter can claim true mission or ju- 
risdiction. " Ubi Petrus, ibi E celesta " — 
Where Peter is, there is the Church — is 



352 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

and has been and ever shall be the watch- 
word of Catholic Christendom. Nor can 
the so-called " branch theory/' of which 
Anglicans are so fond, stand the test of 
truth. Those branches that were lopped 
off from the parent trunk have no sap, no 
spiritual life or energy. They are abso- 
lutely dead branches ; they have severed 
themselves from the source of all spiritual 
power and authority, mission and jurisdic- 
tion ; they are utterly dried up and cannot 
possibly of themselves bear fruit unto life 
eternal. The great St. Cyprian, Bishop of 
Carthage, who flourished about the middle 
of the third century, says : " The Church 
is but one, though she be spread abroad 
and multiplies with the increase of her 
progeny ; even as the sun has many rays, 
yet but one light ; and the tree many boughs, 
yet its strength is one, seated in the deep- 



The Church Apostolic, 353 

ly-lodged root ; and as, when many streams 
flow down from one source, though a mul- 
tiplicity of waters seems diffused from the 
bountifulness of the overflowing abun- 
dance, unity is preserved in the source it- 
self. Part a ray of the sun from its orb, 
and its unity forbids this division of light ; 
break a branch from the tree, once broken 
it can bud no more ; cut the stream from 
its fountain, the remnant will be dried up. 
Thus the Church, flooded with the light 
of the Lord, puts forth her rays through 
the whole world, with yet one light, which 
is spread upon all places, while its unity 
of body is not infringed. She stretches 
forth her branches over the whole earth 
in the riches of plenty, and pours abroad 
her bountiful and onward streams ; yet 
there is one head, one source, one mother, 
abundant in the results of her fruitfulness. 



354 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

It is of her womb we are born, our nour- 
ishing is from her milk, our quickening 
from her breath. The Spouse of Christ 
cannot become adulterate ; she is undefiled 
and chaste, owning but one home, and 
guarding with virtuous modesty the sanc- 
tity of one chamber. She it is who keeps 
us for God and appoints unto the king- 
dom the sons she has borne. Whosoever 
parts company with the Church and joins 
himself to an adulteress is estranged from 
the promises of the Church. He who 
leaves the Church of Christ cannot obtain 
the rewards of Christ. He is an alien, 
an outcast, an enemy. He can no longer 
have God for his Father who has not the 
Church for his Mother." 

Our Blessed Saviour, in His infinite wis- 
dom, knew how strictly necessary it was, 
in order to preserve His Church undi- 



The Church Apostolic. 355 

vided, to have a fixed centre of authority 
— a bond of unity whereby the purity and 
unchangeableness of faith would be se- 
cured, and all schism and disunion in mat- 
ters of Church government would be pre- 
vented. Hence the " branch theory " has 
no solid ground whereon to rest, for how 
can bodies which have ceased to maintain 
vital connection with each other yet be 
parts of one organic whole? It is an ex- 
ceedingly foolish supposition that a branch 
just begins to exist as a branch the very 
moment it is severed from the parent 
trunk. 

Henry VIII., as is well known, separat- 
ed from the Catholic Church and cut off 
all communion with the see of Peter be- 
cause the pope would not sanction his di- 
vorce from his lawful wife, the pure and 
pious Catharine. He thereupon set him- 



356 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

self up as head of the Church of Great 
Britain. He made and unmade -bishops 
by his royal authority, and after his death 
Cranmer and other prelates of the new 
Anglican Church took out new commis- 
sions from the boy-king, Edward VI., 
dtirante beneplacito — while his good-will 
should last. 

Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne, 
siispended all the bishops in the kingdom, 
so that they would be forced to ask fresh 
faculties from her as head of the Church. 
Each prelate-elect was obliged to take an 
oath wherein he " acknowledges and con- 
fesses that he holds his bishopric, as well 
in spirituals as in temporals, from her 
alone and the crown royal." So, contrary 
to the old axiom, " Nemo dat quod non 
ha6et"—No one can give what he has 
not — Elizabeth claimed to possess and to 



The Church Apostolic. 357 

confer all spiritual power, mission, and ju- 
risdiction in the Church of England as by 
law established. This church, or, more cor- 
rectly speaking, a portion of it, claims apos- 
tolic succession, and consequently valid or- 
ders and sacraments. If its divines were 
able to substantiate its claim, the Roman 
Catholic Church would as cheerfully ad- 
mit the validity of their orders as it does 
the orders of the heretical and schismatical 
communions of the East. 

This matter of Anglican orders has 
been under discussion for the last three 
hundred years, and no proof has been 
brought forward to convince Catholic theo- 
logians that there is any solid ground 
for the claim. 

Queen Elizabeth appointed Dr. Mat- 
thew Parker the first primate of the new 
Anglican hierarchy, and issued a royal 



358 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

commission, September the 9th, a.d. 1559, 
to four bishops— Tunstall, of Durham ; 
Bourne, of Bath ; Poole, of Peterborough ; 
and Kitchen, of Llandaff — ^to consecrate 
Parker bishop. Three of the four bish- 
ops refused to consecrate a priest who 
had publicly broken his vows and taken 
to himself a wife, and whose ortho- 
doxy they had every reason to doubt ; and 
these three prelates — Tunstall, Bourne, and 
Poole — were thereupon deprived of their 
sees and cast into prison. Bishop Kitch- 
en, more servile than the others, promised 
to take part in the consecration, and was 
again summoned to do so two months 
later, but managed to be absent on the 
important occasion. The consecration was 
then to depend upon Barlow, simply bish- 
op-elect of Chichester, and others of the 
same ilk. To remove all difficulties Eliza- 



The Church Apostolic. 359 

beth, by her supreme spiritual power, is- 
sued a royal bull, by which she graciously 
supplied all defects that might have exist- 
ed or might possibly exist with regard 
to the approaching consecration. In the 
letters-patent was inserted the following 
clause : " Supplying, nevertheless, by our 
supreme royal authority, by our mere mo- 
tion and our certain knowledge, whatever 
is or shall be wanting either in the things 
done by you under this our mandate, or 
in the condition, state, or faculty of you 
or any of you for the accomplishment of 
the things aforesaid, with respect to the 
things which by the statutes of this our 
realm, or by the ecclesiastical laws in this 
part, are required or necessary, the emer- 
gency of the time and the necessity of 
affairs demanding this course." 

As Father Gallwey, the distinguished 



360 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Jesuit of London, says : " The Catholic 
hierarchy of the Church of England — the 
true and real bishops of the English 
sees — have no part whatsoever in the 
formation of the new hierarchy. They 
make no w T ill or testament in favor of 
the new bishops. The new Elizabethan 
bishops are not their heirs either by lin- 
eage or legacy. The old hierarchy is 
simply thrust aside, and four men are 
brought forward, not one of whom rep- 
resents an English see, not one of whom 
holds ordinary jurisdiction, and not one 
of whom can give jurisdiction ; and they 
are to consecrate the new patriarch and 
primate and father of the Elizabethan 
Church. Therefore whatever jurisdiction 
• the new primate has comes, not from 
them, but solely from the authority of 
the queen. The queen, in her turn, de- 



The Church Apostolic. 361 

rives her jurisdiction from the vote of 
her packed Parliament, which passed an 
act (1 Eliz. c. i. viii.) declaring that 'all 
such jurisdiction, privileges, superiorities, 
and pre-eminences, spiritual and ecclesias- 
tical, as by any spiritual or ecclesiastical 
poiuer or authority hath heretofore or 
may lawfully be exercised, . . . shall for 
ever, by the authority of the present Par- 
liament, be united and annexed to the Im- 
perial Crown of this realm! This, conse- 
quently, is a complete break-off from the" 
old state of things, a thorough revolu- 
tion, a beginning of a new order and a 
new era. Till now we have a hierarchy 
holding jurisdiction from the only true 
source of spiritual jurisdiction, the Vicar 
of Christ, to whom our Lord said : ' I 
give thee the keys ; whatsoever thou shalt 
loose shall be loosed, whatsoever thou 



362 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

shalt bind shall be bound/ That ancient 
hierarchy transmits nothing. It is violent- 
ly extinguished and leaves no successor."* 
According to Anglican accounts, Parker 
was consecrated December 17, about five 
or six o'clock in the morning, in Lam- 
beth Chapel, by Barlow, assisted by Sco- 
rey, Coverdale, and Hodgskin, according 
to the rite of King Edward VI. With 
regard to Barlow, the records of his ap- 
pointment by Henry VIII. and of his 
confirmation by the same are to be 
found, but no proof whatsoever or record 
of any kind has been brought forward to 
show that he was ever consecrated. Bar- 
low and Cranmer, as is evident from the 
answers they gave before the theological 
commission called together by King Hen- 
ry, did not believe in the necessity of 

* Anglican Orders ', Lecture x. 



The Church Apostolic. 363 

consecration, but that appointment by the 
king was the only thing necessary. To 
the king's question, " Whether the apos- 
tles, lacking a higher power, as in not 
having a Christian king among them, 
made bishops by that necessity or by the 
authority given of God ? " Barlow, ac- 
cording to Burnet's History, * answered 
briefly : " Because they lacked a Chris- 
tian prince, by that necessity they or- 
dained other bishops." To the question, 
"Whether in the New Testament any 
consecration of a bishop or a priest, or 
only appointing to the office be suf- 
ficient?" Cranmer answered: "In the New 
Testament he that is appointed to be a 
bishop or a priest needeth no consecration 
by the Scriptures, for election or appoint- 
ment thereto is sufficient." Barlow re- 

* Vol. i. p. 201. 



364 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

plied also that "only the appointing" was 
necessary. "They deliberately chose," says 
Father Gallwey, "to have such a priest- 
hood and such a hierarchy for England as 
the Church Catholic would never recog- 
nize — a priesthood and a hierarchy such as 
Henry VIII. yearned for, that had no 
other title than the king's i appoynta- 
ment/ Later on some of them repent- 
ed, but it was too late — the child was 
born ; the infant church was a state 
church, a Protestant church, a priestless 
church, and a bishopless church as much 
as the Kirk of Scotland or any dissenting 
body; and so it must remain. It is born 
in Elizabethan Calvinism ; it can never 
grow into a Catholic Church." 

The Elizabethan divines cared nothing 
for consecration nor for apostolic succes- 
sion. They needed no altar, for they did 



The Church Apostolic. 365 

not believe in a sacrifice nor in the Real 

Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. 
They hated the Mass and considered it 
an abomination, and all "Massing priests," 
as they were then called, were punished 
by being hanged, disembowelled, and quar- 
tered, according to the new laws of the 
land, for celebrating the Holy Sacrifice. 

Dr. Whitaker, one of the Anglican di- 
vines of that time, says in his answer to 
Durey : "I would not have you think 
that we make such account of your orders 
as to consider no calling lawful without 
them. Therefore keep your orders to 
yourselves God is not so tied to orders 
but that He can without orders, when the 
good of the Church requires, constitute 
ministers in the Church. And the churches 
have the lawful power of choosing minis- 
ters, so that there is no need to take from 



366 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

you those who are to discharge the minis- 
try among us." 

Thus we see that neither the Church of 
England nor the Episcopal Church of 
America possesses true orders, and if there 
were any solid reasons to show that they 
really possessed them the Roman Catholic 
Church would not deny their validity, any 
more than it would deny the validity of 
baptism when properly administered by 
those outside her communion. Were we 
even to admit that they rejoiced in their 
possession, Anglicans would be in no bet- 
ter condition than the Donatists of the 
fifth century. They certainly had valid 
orders, and the Catholic Church never 
denied them ; yet, though they could then 
count two hundred and seventy bishops, 
they were cut off from the communion of 
the faithful for one act of disobedience. 



The Churck Apostolic. 367 

Their crime was one of schism rather than 
of heresy, yet schism was as deeply repro- 
bated by the Fathers of the Church as 
any other crime of which they could be 
guilty. 

St. Augustine thus addresses the Dona- 
tists : " You are all guilty of schism, from 
which most heinous sacrilege not one of 
you can say that he is innocent as long 
as he does not communicate with the uni- 
ty of all nations, unless he be forced to 
say that Christ has deceived us regarding 
that Church which, beginning at Jerusa- 
lem, is spread throughout all nations." 

Our Blessed Saviour foresaw that unity 
could not be preserved without a centre 
of unity, and it was for this chief reason 
that He built His Church on Peter, who, 
through his legitimate successors, would 
guide His Church, preserve its unity, con- 



368 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

firm his brethren in the faith, and be the 
supreme shepherd of all the sheep as well 
as lambs of the entire fold. St. Optatus 
(who flourished in the fourth century), 
writing against the Donatists, says : " We 
must see who first sat upon the chair, and 
where. If you are ignorant, learn ; if you 
know it, blush ; you cannot be charged 
with ignorance, therefore you must know 
it. . . . Therefore you cannot deny that 
you know that in the city of Rome the 
episcopal chair was bestowed on Peter 
first, on which sat Peter, the head of all 
the apostles, whence he was called Cephas ; 
in which one chair unity was to be pre- 
served by all, lest the rest of the apostles 
should stand up each one for a separate 
Church ; so that he should be a schismatic 
and a sinner who should set up against the 
one chair another." 



The Church Apostolic. 369 

This is the rock made immovable by 
Christ's almighty power. No waves of 
error, heresy, or schism can ever submerge 
it. Storms may rage against it, darkness 
may hover around it, tempests, stirred up 
by the passions of men or the envy of hell, 
may assail it on every side, yet it has its 
foundations in the everlasting hills, and it 
will remain the only refuge, the only place 
of safety for the poor, bewildered mariners 
on the stormy sea of life, who are too often 
tossed about by every wind of doctrine, 
and who will seek elsewhere in vain for 
any solid ground whereon to stand. 

There is now, and has been for a long 
time, among no small number of earnest 
Christians a desire for unity. They can- 
not but see the evils of a divided Chris- 
tendom — evils which have been growing 
more and more apparent every year. It 



370 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

has been the greatest obstacle to the spread 
of the Gospel and to the consequent sal- 
vation of barbarous nations. The answer 
which missionaries of different denomina- 
tions invariably receive from intelligent 
pagans whom they seek to convert to 
Christ is, " Go home, and when you agree 
among yourselves, then come and preach 
to us." 

This disunion is the chief cause of the 
indifference of the age. It has weakened 
the faith in many minds, and has entirely 
eradicated it from many hearts. It has 
produced that most terrible of all delu- 
sions — namely, that it matters not what a 
man believes, and that dogmas or eternal 
truths are things of no consequence. Thus 
religion is undermined and morality loses 
its sanction. 

Where is the remedy ? The only remedy 



The Church Apostolic. 371 

is the one provided by God. Certain- 
ly Christ foresaw all this disunion and 
its terrible consequences, and He estab- 
lished His Church on such a basis 
that, if men would heed its warnings and 
listen to its voice, no heresy or schism 
could make any headway. " He who 
hears you," Christ said to the rulers of 
His Church, " hears Me; he who despises 
you despises Me." 

But some persons may say : " We are 
anxious for union, but the Catholic 
Church will make no concessions ; it is 
unwilling to compromise, it is entirely too 
dogmatic, and, above all, it claims to be 
infallible in its teaching." These persons 
are right in their surmises. The Catholic 
Church cannot possibly compromise even 
one of its principles. It cannot make 
any concession to error, heresy, or dis- 



372 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

obedience. It is and must be essentially 
dogmatic. It claims, and cannot do other- 
wise than claim, infallibility, otherwise it 
could not be the Church of Christ. It 
must remain what He made it. It rests 
upon His unfailing promises. It is guid- 
ed by His Holy Spirit, who teaches it all 
truth necessary to be known, and who is 
to remain with it, enlightening and direct- 
ing it, until time shall be no more. 

It cannot change its system of divine 
truth to please any age or any man or 
body of men. God's truth remains the 
same for ever. 

Being the only true Church of Christ, 
it must be, like Himself, unchangeable in 
its standard of doctrine and morals. It 
can add nothing to, nor take away aught 
from, the deposit of faith, the truths 
taught by Christ or handed down by the 



The Church Apostolic. 373 

apostles, who were inspired by the Holy 
Ghost. There is no new revelation to be 
expected. Truths may in course of time 
become more developed, be seen in clearer 
light, be defined in plainer and more forci- 
ble terms, but there can be no new doc- 
trine. The Church cannot teach anything 
erroneous or heretical ; it cannot lead men 
astray ; it cannot deceive them as to the 
means necessary for salvation ; it cannot, as 
a Church, become corrupt or corrupting, 
otherwise the promises of Christ would 
thereby fail, and the entire structure of 
Christianity would fall to the ground. 

Christ established His Church on the 
firm, unshaken basis of one fold under 
one shepherd. To that shepherd, His 
Vicegerent on earth, St. Peter and his 
successors, He confided His whole flock : 
" Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." 



374 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

" Thou art Peter [a rock], and upon 
this rock I will build My Church, and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
it. To thee I will give the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever 
thou shalt bind upon earth shall be 
bound also in heaven ; and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose upon earth shall be 
loosed also in heaven." * 

Surely Christ never spoke in vain, and 
no more remarkable words ever fell from 
His sacred lips than these just quoted. 
They are certainly clear and precise and 
full of the deepest meaning. It is to be 
feared that many of our separated breth- 
ren do not reflect upon their great sig- 
nificance. 

Protestants say that Catholics attribute 
too much power to the pope. We do 

*St. Matthew xvi. 18, 19. 



The Church Apostolic. 375 

not concede to him any more than Christ 
Himself does. To St. Peter alone, as 
head of the Apostolic College, and, as 
the Church was not to end with St. Pe- 
ter, to his successors in office, our Divine 
Lord gave the very " keys of the kingdom 
of heaven'' If you do not recognize Pe- 
ter in his legitimate successors, if you dis- 
pute his power and reject his authority, 
how can you, with any show of reason, 
expect to enter the heavenly portals ? 
There is only one set of keys, and it is 
not in the power of man to duplicate 
them. 

This, you may say, is intolerance, want 
of charity. Truth is and always must be 
intolerant of error. If you believe in 
your heart that you are strictly honest, 
you will be intolerant of any opinion to 
the contrary. You are convinced that 



376 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

two and two make four, and no sane 
man will tolerate the opinion that two 
and two make five. 

Truth is necessarily intolerant, but not 
persecuting. Neither is it a want of 
charity to insist upon true Catholic doc- 
trines, to proclaim them to the world fre- 
quently and forcibly. 

Any man who believes most firmly that 
he is in possession of the only true sav- 
ing faith, and who loves his fellow-men 
with a deep, abiding love, cannot but de- 
sire most earnestly that others may enjoy 
the same great gift, the same blessed pri- 
vilege. We are commanded to love our 
neighbor as ourselves, and any one who 
sees his neighbor in grievous danger, 
whether of soul or body, and will nei- 
ther warn nor help him, makes void the 
law of Christ. 



The Church Apostolic. 377 

Out of this Christian love — which we all 
should have one for another — these pages 
are written. The writer believes, with all 
the sincerity of his soul, that if those out- 
side our communion would know the Ca- 
tholic Church as it really is, and not as it 
is misrepresented ; if they could but see 
its resplendent beauty, perceive the logical 
connection of its system of doctrines, the 
astonishing purity and loftiness of its mo- 
ral code, the infinite reasonableness— if I 
may so express it — of its claims on man's 
obedience, and its wonderful adaptability 
to all the wants and desires of the human 
heart, there are thousands who would never 
rest satisfied until they would be admitted 
to its fold. 

Although the attention that is given to 
the Catholic Church in our times is ever 
on the increase, yet the vast majority of 



378 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

our American people are in deep igno- 
rance of its true teaching. This is also 
true of many persons who are in all other 
respects fairly educated. Even quite late- 
ly the writer has met prominent men who 
had the most mistaken notions with re- 
gard to the simplest truths of our religion, 
and who were imbued with prejudices that 
we had hoped had long since been dissi- 
pated — such, for instance, as that most silly 
and unfounded of all notions that priests 
were paid for the forgiveness of sins and 
the granting of indulgences to commit sin. 
Such persons must have a very poor opin- 
ion of the intelligence as well as of the 
morality of their Catholic neighbors. They 
should consider that Catholics are not fools 
— as fools, without doubt, they would be if 
they believed such doctrines as those im- 
puted to them. 



The Church Apostolic. 379 

In every walk of life Catholics can be 
found who are at least the equals of their 
Protestant fellow-citizens in breadth of 
mind, in sharpness of intelligence, logical 
precision, and last, though not least, in 
the elevation of high moral principle. 
Hence it is an insult to charge them with 
believing what is opposed to common sense 
itself. 

All this comes from the atmosphere of 
prejudice and bigotry in which so many 
outside the Church are unfortunately rear- 
ed. The majority of Protestants seem to 
be afraid to enter a Catholic church or to 
read a Catholic book. They judge us by 
the declarations of our enemies. They 
have oftentimes been taught that it is 
wrong, that it is sinful, to examine the 
claims of the Catholic Church, that it 
would be a source of danger to their souls. 



380 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Their conscience is consequently an erro- 
neous one ; they cannot act against it, yet 
they should labor to inform and correct it. 

As it is a fundamental principle of Pro- 
testantism to examine every doctrine and 
to follow private judgment, all we ask of 
those outside the household of faith is to 
examine well and to pray fervently ; to 
examine our doctrines, not as they are 
misrepresented by our enemies, but as they 
are explained by our authorized teachers or 
by well-informed Catholics. It is not fair 
to ask illiterate Catholics for a reason for 
the faith that is in them. They know the 
chief principles of their religion, and very 
often have true ideas of its principal doc- 
trines, but it requires education to be 
able to impart the knowledge which they 
possess. 

Then, before all and above all, non-Ca- 



The Church Apostolic. 381 

tholics should pray earnestly, fervently, per- 
severirigly for the light and grace of the 
Holy Spirit, that they may find the truth, 
and, when they have found it, that they 
may be ready and willing to embrace it, 
at any sacrifice ; for " what doth it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and lose 
his soul ? " 

There is no possibility of salvation for 
those who know or have reason to know 
that the Catholic Church is the only true 
Church of Christ, and yet from worldly 
motives will not enter it. " He who de- 
nies Me before men," says the Master, 
" him shall I deny before My Father who 
is in heaven." 

They who are in serious doubt with re- 
gard to their religion are obliged in con- 
science to examine and thus to discover 
on what ground they rest their hopes. 



382 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

Salvation is a matter of the greatest im- 
portance ; therefore religion should not be 
a matter of indifference. An eternity of 
happiness is at stake, and, as we cannot 
return from the everlasting shore to recti- 
fy a mistake, so it is the duty of every 
one to choose the surest and safest path. 

I doubt not, however, that there is a 
goodly number of Protestants who are in 
good faith and invincibly ignorant of the 
claims which the Catholic Church has 
upon their belief and obedience. If they 
have been validly baptized and are ani- 
mated with piety and charity towards God 
and man, if they be sincerely sorry for all 
their sins out of pure love of God, if 
they live up to all the light they have 
and would embrace the Catholic faith did 
they but know it to be the only true 
one, such persons belong to the soul of 



The CI lurch Apostolic. 383 

the Catholic Church, and will therefore be 
saved. 

What that eminent divine and holy pre- 
late, Cardinal Manning, says of the good 
faith and invincible ignorance of the peo- 
ple of England can, I think, be said 
with scarcely less truth of the majority of 
American Protestants, more especially of 
those who live in the country districts : 
"The doctrine, 'extra ecclesiam nulla sa- 
Ims' is to be interpreted both by dogmatic 
and by moral theology. As a dogma, 
theologians teach that many belong to the 
Church who are out of its visible unity ; as 
a moral truth, that to be out of the Church 
is no personal sin, except to those who 
sin in being out of it. That is, they will 
be lost, not because they are geographi- 
cally out of it, but because they are cul- 
pably out of it. And they who are cul- 



384 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

pably out of it are those who know — or 
might and therefore ought to know — that 
it is their duty to submit to it. The 
Church teaches that men may be incul- 
pably out of its pale. Now, they are in- 
culpably out of it who are and have 
always been either physically or morally 
unable to see their obligation to submit 
to it." 

The eminent w T riter then speaks of the 
different classes that come under this head, 
and " of such simple persons it may be 
said that infantibus czquiparantur — they 
are to be classed morally with infants. 
Again, to these may be added the un- 
learned in all classes, among whom many 
have no contact with the Catholic Church 
or with Catholic books. Under this head 
will come a great number of wives and 
daughters whose freedom of religious in- 



The Church Apostolic. 385 

quiry and religious thought is unjustly 
limited or suspended by the authority of 
parents and husbands. Add, lastly, the 
large class who have been studiously 
brought up, with all the dominant au- 
thority of the English tradition of three 
hundred years, to believe sincerely, and 
without a doubt, that the Catholic Church 
is corrupt, has changed the doctrines of 
the faith, and that the author of the Re- 
formation is the spirit of holiness and 
truth. It may seem incredible to some 
that such an illusion exists. But it is 
credible to me, because for nearly forty 
years of my life I was fully possessed by 
this erroneous belief. To all such persons 
it is morally difficult to discover the false- 
hood of this illusion. All the better parts 
of their nature are engaged in its sup- 
port ; dutifulness, self-mistrust, submission, 



o 



86 The Keys of the Kingdom. 



respect for others older, better, more 
learned than themselves, all combine to 
form a false conscience of the duty to re- 
fuse to hear anything against 'the religion 
of their fathers/ 'the church of their bap- 
tism/ or to read anything which could 
unsettle them. . . . Nothing that I have 
said above modifies the absolute and vi- 
tal necessity of submitting to the Catho- 
lic Church as the only way of salvation 
to those who know it, by the revelation 
of God, to be such." * 

Now that the Catholic Church is spread- 
ing more and more throughout the length 
and breadth of our immense country, and 
churches, schools, convents, and monaste- 
ries are springing up on every side, and 
the press of the country is treating us 
with greater fairness than ever before, 

* England ana 7 Christendom, p. 91. 



The Church Apostolic. 387 

the chances for invincible ignorance are 
becoming less day by day. 

It is no doubt difficult for those who 
were born, it might be said, in the faith 
to understand how there can be any ear- 
nest, intelligent persons outside the fold, 
when the marks of the divinity of the 
Roman Catholic Church are so striking 
and resplendent. Its remarkable unity, ho- 
liness, catholicity, and apostolicity cannot 
but impress the world. More especially is 
this so when we consider the hundreds of 
millions of human beings, so different in 
all things else, yet reciting the same un- 
alterable creed; living in the midst of con- 
stant changes, yet still holding the same 
substantial faith once delivered to the 
saints ; all worshipping at the same altar 
and partaking of the same divine sacra- 
ments, and all, whether rich or poor, 



388 The Keys of the Kingdom. 

learned or unlearned, bowing in humble 
submission to one divinely-appointed chief 
of the visible Church of God, the legiti- 
mate successor of the fisherman of Gali- 
lee, to whom is confided the highest of 
trusts, the weightiest of responsibilities, 
the most exalted of powers and dignities. 
And how intensely grateful we of the 
Catholic faith ought to be to God for His 
unspeakable mercies and favors, not the 
least of which is the blessing which He has 
conferred upon us in the selection of the 
great Pontiff who now so worthily sits on 
the chair of Peter — Pope Leo XIII., whose 
admirable wisdom and prudence have won 
the admiration of the greatest men of our 
time, even of those who profess not our 
holy religion. Inflexible in principle, gen- 
tle yet firm in action, resplendent by his 
virtues, gifted with all the learning of the 



The Church Apostolic. 389 

schools, fully abreast of the scientists of 
the age, and supreme teacher of the high- 
est of sciences, he labors day and night 
to enlighten society and to bring back to 
the fold all those who have wandered far 
away from the source of true light and 
knowledge and are lost in the labyrinth 
of materialism and infidelity. 

May the Almighty long preserve to the 
Church our great Pontiff, Leo XIII., and 
may God crown his declining days by as 
miraculous draught of the souls of men as 
would gladden the heart of St. Peter him- 
self, the first of that glorious line of "fish- 
ers of men " who hold by right divine the 
" Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven " ! 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 

STUMBLING-BLOCKS MADE STEPPING- 
STONES. 

Twelfth Edition. . i vol. i2mo, Cloth extra, $1 25, net. 

Highly com 7)i ended by the secular as zuell as religious press, and favored 

with the Apostolic Benediction of His Holiness Leo XIII. 

u This is the product of a loving heart and clear intellect."— Tablet, London, Eng. 

" A wonderful success."— N. Y. Freeman's Journal. 

*' Written clearly and forcibly and without a trace of sectarian bitterness."— A r . Y. 
Herald. 

" Worthy of calm perusal." — N. Y. Graphic. 

" Sho-ild be read by every one, regardless of creed."— Hudson Daily Register. 

11 Well written, logical, and reasoning. " — Albany Press. 

"A clear, simple, yet most reasonable explanation of Catholic doctrine." — Catholic 
World. 

"A monument to the eloquence and erudition of the author." — McGee's Weekly. 

" Manly strength and firmness characterizes him both in style and thought." — 
Buffalo Catholic Union. 

"The doctrines of the Catholic Faith are set forthwith knowledge and tempe- 
rance." — Nem York Sun. ■ 

" In the treatment of doctrinal questions there is an exhibition of original thought, 
logic, asid research which gives to every page peculiar freshness and interest, by 
whomsoever read." — Syracuse Journal. 

"It is worth ten times the price even as a mere literary treat." — Catholic Review. 

11 Written in a plain but scholarly style, in a spirit of candor and perfect good-will. 
. m . . It is a book which every Protestant whose knowledge of Catholicism w r as 
gained through Protestant writers solely should read." — Syracuse Standard. 

"It has won its wav to a foremost place among the religious publications of the 
day." — Syracuse Evening Herald. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR : 

ALL FOR LOVE; 

Or, FROM THE MANGER TO THE CROSS. 

Third Edition. 1 vol. extra Cloth, $1 25, net. 

".It is marked throughout by the most genuine feeling and individuality of thought. 
The reflections are so just and the expression of them is so appropriate and simple 
that nothing but pleasure and edification can be the result. Great taste reigns in 
every paragraph, and if the matter was delivered in the shape of sermons or lectures, 
they must have been very touching." — London Tablet. 

" It is a life of Christ written on the broadest possible plan, commends itself to all 
classes and creeds, is charming in style, and will undoubtedly circulate among Chris- 
tians of all denominations." — Slew York Herald. 

" Father Moriarty is an accomplished writer; he has already made his mark as a 
theological essayist, and there is in his new work, 'All for Love,' a devotional spirit 
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highest sentiments and the purest susceptibilities. _ Next to that exquisite book, 'All 
for Jesus,' by Father Faber— perhaps exceeding it in many respects for the general 
reader— is this new contribution to Catholic literature — Catholic in its widest sense ; 
for while the production of a Roman Catholic clergyman, there is nothing in the con- 
tents which all Christians cannot accept and cling to." — New York Star. 

" Verysweet indeed is it, rich with the fatness of the Gospel, bracing as mountain 
air, beautiful as the skies of a summer night. Sound in doctrine, convincing in reason- 
ing, clear in style, attractive in arrangement, edifving in its conclusions, it is apt to 
make us love our Elder Brother and prove our love by walking in his footsteps and 
becoming like unto Him."— Baltimore Mirror. 



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